Pulwama Attack: Deported from UAE, top Jaish commander Tantray discloses key details

Nisar Ahmed Tantray, the top Jaish-e-Mohammed commander deported from the UAE last week, has disclosed key details of the Pulwama terror attack to the Indian officials, latest media report said on Tuesday. According to an HT report, Tantray has said that he had prior information about the February attack. The report also states that this is the first time that Tantray’s confession revealed the role of top Jaish leadership in the attack on the CRPF convoy. The Jaish commander told his interrogators that it was Mudassir Kj\han, who was the brain behind the Pulwama attack. Khan had reportedly ‘invited’ Tantray to take part in a ‘spectacular’ plan against Indian armed forces. 

The National Investigation Agency had arrested Tantray last week. He was absconding since the 2017 Lethpora CRPF terror attack. He had escaped to the UAE on February 1 this year. Nisar is the younger brother of Jaish commander Noor Tantray. The government of India brought him back to the country on March 31, according to news agency ANI.

The terrorist attack on the CRPF group centre in Lethpora was carried out on the intervening night of December 30-31, 2017, by three terrorists of the proscribed terrorist organisation, the NIA said. During its investigation, the terrorists were identified as Fardeen Ahmad Khandey and Manzoor Baba, both from Pulwama, and Abdul Shakoor from Rawalakot area of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. All three were killed in the encounter.

On February 14, at least 42 CRPF personnel were killed in one of the deadliest terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district when a Jaish suicide bomber rammed a vehicle carrying over 30 kg of explosives into their bus in Pulwama district that also left many critically wounded.

More than 2,500 Central Reserve Police Force personnel, many of them returning from leave to rejoin duty in the Valley, were travelling in the convoy of 78 vehicles when they were ambushed on the Srinagar-Jammu highway at Latoomode in Awantipora in south Kashmir. India retaliated after the strike by bombing the Jaish group’s hideout in Balakot across the Line of Control.