Security agencies investing the car bomb blast attempt in Pulwama which was foiled by India’s security forces last week, have now revealed that the entire plot was set by Ismail Alvi alias Lambu, who is currently the head of terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) in Kashmir. He is also a close relative of JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar.
Sources told The Daily Guardian that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) would soon take over the investigation. The central agency has been looking for Alvi since last year after the Pulwama attack. According to the security agencies, Alvi is an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) expert and he helped other terrorists to fit explosives into a car which was used to carry out the attack last year. His junior, Sameer Ahmed Dar, was also involved in the same attack. Security agencies said, “We got information that he was once again preparing to play out an attack like last year. The bomb was fitted into a Santro car but was rounded off by the forces in the early hours of 28 May. Forensic experts have said that this was similar the ones used in 2019 and was made using a mixture of Ammonium Nitrate and Nitro-glycerine.” Between seven and nine people were involved in this plan, they added.
An official close to the investigation has also revealed that Alvi is often called Ismail Bhai and Fauji Baba. He came to India in 2018 and helped Mudassir Khan, Khalid and Mohammad Omar Farooq in the last year’s attack. He had arranged items like gelatine and nitrate from local shops, which were later used to make explosives. He took command of the Jaish outfit after Qari Mufti Yasir was killed by the security forces in January. It has further been revealed that along with Jaish-e-Mohammad, other terror outfits like Hizbul Mujahideen and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba might have also been involved in last week’s attempted attack.
Officials investigating the case told that Alvi also played a key role in the 2019 Pulwama attack which shook the entire nation. On 14 February 2019, a convoy of vehicles carrying Indian security personnel on the Jammu Srinagar highway was attacked by a suicide bomber at Lethpora in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir. Forty Central Reserve Police Force personnel were martyred in the attack.
