Srinagar Flea Market Terror Attack; NIA Files Chargesheet Against Three
NIA charges three srinagar youth in deadly ISIS-linked grenade attack on city market
Srinagar: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Saturday formally charged three Srinagar youth in connection with a deadly grenade attack that took place in the City’s busy flea market on November 3 last year.
A 45-year-old woman Abida Zubair -a resident of Valley's Bandipore district-was killed and a dozen other civilians injured in the grenade blast.
The NIA said that the accused Sheikh Osama Yasin, Umar Fayaz Sheikh and Afnan Manzoor Naik were linked with proscribed ISIS’s local unit -ISJK- and that they have been charge sheeted under relevant sections of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967, Explosive Substances Act, and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). The charge sheet was filed in a NIA Special Court at Jammu.
The NIA has, during the investigation, found that the trio had planned, conspired and executed the grenade attack with the intent to create panic and terror in the region, the agency said in a statement. “The attack was part of a broader strategy to disturb public order and further the violent agenda of terrorist outfits operating with support from across the border”, it added.
Inspector General of Police (Kashmir range) VK Birdi had told a press conference here on November 9 that three persons who, as per preliminary investigation, were associated with proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and “who carried out the attack at the behest of handlers based in Pakistan” have been arrested from Srinagar’s Ikhraj Pora area. Their target was a ‘mobile bunker’ of the CRPF, but the hand grenade tossed towards it fell and exploded on the road, leaving shoppers and vendors injured, the officials had said