40 kilograms of explosives: Thwarting a nightmare at Pulwama

New Delhi, May 29: The car from which the Jammu and Kashmir police recovered explosives and thwarted a Pulwama type attack belonged to Hizbul Mujahideen operative Hidayatullah Malik.

He is a resident of Sharatpora in Shopian and had joined the outfit in 2019. Malik is an active member of the outfit, police sources tell OneIndia.

"We are still ascertaining, who these terrorists were trying to target", the source also said.

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Based on the analysis the police say that the car was laden with 40 kilograms of explosives. The explosives were placed in a drum on the rear seat of the car.

Security forces recovered an IED from a Santro car. The same has been diffused by the bomb disposal squad of the army and police at Avindgund, Rajpora in South Kashmir. After searching the vehicle, a joint team of the 44 Rashtriya Rifles, CRPF and Pulwama police recovered the IED.

The action was taken based on concrete intelligence that was provided four days back. The IGP of Kashmir Vijay Kumar said that a major incident of a vehicle-borne IED blast has been averted by the timely input and action by the Pulwama polices CRPF and Army.

The vehicle bore the number JK08, B1426. This is reportedly the number of a scooter, sources also said.

Had the car managed to get away, it was would have been a catastrophe. So many lives would have been lost. It is thanks to pin-pointed intelligence that we were able to intercept the vehicle.

An Intelligence Bureau (IB) official explained that they had picked up chatter earlier this week.

It was clear that the JeM was planning something very big in the Valley. The intelligence was found to be Grade A in nature and hence the operation was so precise, the officer further explained.

While there were clear inputs about a major terror attack there was no specific information on which route the driver would take. The police, Army and the CRPF formed separate teams, spread out and covered all possible routes. When the car was first spotted, the security forces opened fire. The driver/terrorist stopped the car and fled from the spot.

Kashmir's police officer Rayees Mohammad Bhat said, 'this is such great work. Imagine if this had led to loss of lives", he said on Twitter. The Kashmir police said in a tweet that a major incident of a vehicle-borne IED blast is averted by the timely inputs and action by the Pulwama Police, CRPF and Army.

It may be recalled that last week, the police was attacked by terrorists in Pulwama. Two jawans were injured in the attack. The terrorists had opened fire when the security personnel were patrolling the area.