Pulwama Attack / The 23-Year-Old Woman Who Helped The Terrorists

New Delhi: The lone woman arrested in the Pulwama investigation played a crucial role in facilitating the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorists who carried out the deadly suicide attack last year, the National Investigation Agency (NIA)'s charge-sheet reveals.

The NIA claims Insha Jan, 23, was involved with main conspirator Mohd Umar Farooq, the Pakistani bomb-maker killed in Kashmir by security forces in March. She was in touch with him on the phone and other social media platforms.

"We have retrieved many messages exchanged between them which suggest their proximity and we have mentioned this in our charge-sheet," a senior NIA officer told NDTV a day after the agency filed a 13,500-page charge-sheet.

Insha Jan's father Tariq Pir was also aware of the relationship, according to the NIA.

Tariq Pir allegedly facilitated the movement of Umar Farooq and two other associates in and around Pulwama. "The father-daughter duo provided Umar Farooq, Sameer Dar and Adil Ahmed Dar (the three key players in the attack) food, shelter and other logistics on more than 15 occasions. The terrorists stayed for two to four days at a time at their home, several times between 2018 and 2019," the officer revealed.

Over 40 soldiers were killed when a suicide bomber rammed a car full of explosives into a security convoy at Pulwama on February 14 last year. The NIA says Adil Ahmed Dar was the suicide bomber.

The NIA chargesheet states that Insha Jan used to pass on information about the movement of security forces to Umar Farooq, the nephew of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar, a terror mastermind wanted in India for the 26/11 attacks. Masood Azhar is named as the key conspirator in the Pulwama terror.

The NIA chargesheet says Umar Farooq infiltrated into India on April 14, 2018, along with four other terrorists. "We are also probing the Jhajjar Kotli case in which some more terrorists crossed over. We arrested two terror operatives who revealed how many terrorists they had helped cross over to India. Subsequent investigations revealed that the duo had helped Umar Farooq and four others infiltrate into India," revealed an officer handling the Pulwama attack case.

Umar Farooq, he says, managed to reach south Kashmir and started participating in small terror related incidents and activating more terrorists. "It's only after his real brother Ibrahim Haider was killed in an encounter in October 2018 that he received directions from Pakistan to do something big," the officer said.

Umar Farooq kept visiting Insha Jan's home. The NIA says in its charge-sheet that the video released by Jaish claiming responsibility for the attack was shot at her residence.

"The video has the voice of Sameer Dar and shows Fidayeen Adil Dar (the suicide bomber). It was shot for two days - January 28-29 2019. Sameer's voiceover was okayed but Adil was not confident enough, so their lip sync was not matching. After a lot of retakes they managed to shoot the video properly. It was then WhatsApped to Pakistan where it was improvised and then sent back. The video was released after the attack," the officer said.