Srinagar: Police on Tuesday arrested two men from Khanyar area of Srinagar downtown for their involvement in Sunday’s grenade attack in Amirakadal area of the city in which two civilians were killed and several others injured.
A police spokesman identified one of the accused as Mohammad Bariq, son of Mohammad Shafi Magrey of Koolipora, Khanyar. His interrogation led to the arrest of the second accused — Fazil Nabi Sofi, son of Ghulam Nabi Sofi, also from Koolipora, Khanyar, police said.
The two-wheeler used in this grenade attack was also seized by SIT of police set up to investigate the attack that took place at around 4:20 PM on Sunday.
“It further came out that these two accused had committed the terrorist act on the directions of active terrorists in Kashmir valley,” police said.
“The plan was to attack the parked security vehicle but due to grenade throwing from a moving two-wheeler, the target was missed and the grenade exploded in an adjacent crowded area where many road-side vendors and buyers were busy in routine works,” police informed.
“It was also found that this particular area was chosen due to the omnipresent chaos and turbulent traffic in this stretch of area due to unorganised vendors and stalls on the road,” police added.
Initially a case under FIR number 18/2022 under section 307 of IPC, sections 7/27 of Indian Arms Act, sections 16,23 of Unlawful Activities Prevention Act was registered at Shaheedgunj Police Station. Later, section 302 of IPC and sections 3, 4 of Explosive Substances Act were added to this case.
SSP Srinagar Rakesh Balwal, had formed a SIT headed by Lakshay Sharma, SP South, and consisting of Shabir Ahmed, SDPO Kothibagh; Fayaz Hussain, SDPO Shaheedgunj; Faizan Ali, DySP/PC; Anzar Shah DySP (Probationer); Gowhar Hussain, SHO Shaheedgunj, and Taseer Ahmed, Inspector/PC as members.
As per police, the SIT employed modern means of investigation and based on the technical evidences like minute frame by frame analysis of the CCTV footages of scene of crime, footages of CCTVs in the whole of Srinagar city, cell tower dump analysis, IP dump analysis, recreation of crime scene and by examination of some eye-witnesses to zero in on the accused.
“Based on these, SIT was able to identify two accused, who came on a two-wheeler without number-plate to commit this crime, and fled on the same vehicle after committing the terrorist act. During the intense analysis of the CCTV trail in Srinagar city, the route adopted by both accused was located back to one neighbourhood in Khanyar area,” police said of the two accused.
Earlier also there have been two other recent grenade attacks in this area — the first one on August 10, 2021 and the second on January 25, 2022.
This grenade attack has created terror, panic and anguish among the masses in whole of Srinagar city as it was carried out in a crowded marketplace and had left 32 civilians and a policeman injured. Later, two of the injured civilians had succumbed — 79 year old Mohammed Aslam Makhdoomi and 19-year-old Rafia Nazir, who had secured 94 percent marks in Class 12 exams recently.
Meanwhile, police also requested all commercial establishments and shops to install CCTV cameras inside and outside of their establishments, according to the advisory issued by Deputy Commissioner Srinagar.
This will act as a strong deterrence to all the anti-social elements, police said.
