LeT member Saifullah chargesheeted: Lashkar responsible for J&K chaos in 2016, says NIA

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) was responsible for the chaos in Jammu and Kashmir after militant Burhan Wani's death in July 2016, according to a chargesheet filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday against Pakistani national and suspected LeT member Bahadur Ali alias Saifullah. He has been accused of attempting to attack security forces in Jammu and Kashmir.

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Saifullah was arrested on July 25, 2016, after entering India with two others -- Abu Saad and Abu Darda, who were not caught. Saifullah was caught from a hideout in Yaham village in Jammu and Kashmir's Kupwara district.

Saifullah was told by his instructors that the LeT cadre in Kashmir was successful in starting a large-scale agitation after Wani's death. The months long protest and clamp down by the government led to death of more than 100 people in Kashmir. Saifullah was also instructed to throw grenades at Indian forces from among the crowd of stone-pelters.

Saifullah has been charged under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, Explosives Act, Arms Act and Foreigners Act, among other laws. At the time of his arrest, Saifullah was carrying "one compass, one ICOM wireless set, one matrix sheet bearing codes, two unicode sheets (handwritten pocket diary pages), bearing text written in coded form, Rs 23,000 (of which three notes were found to be fake), one GPS set and one map sheet."

After his arrest, Saifullah led police to a cache of arms and ammunition buried in a forest. The chargesheet claimed that " Saifullah is a trained terrorist, practiced in the craft of reading maps using grid references and deft in communicating through wireless set by pairing mobile phone with it to avoid interception."

"While crossing into India on the intervening night of June 12 and 13 last year, these terrorists were equipped with arms and ammunition, navigation equipment, combat material and other articles," the NIA said in its chargesheet.

"These terrorists entered into Indian territory to carry out terrorist attacks in Jammu and Kashmir and at different places in the country, as per the instructions given to them by their LeT handlers based in Pakistan or Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK)," it said.

Saifullah had plans to carry out terror attacks in Delhi, Rafiabad, Kunzar, Tangmarg, Budgam, Poonch, Jammu and Udhampur. He also revealed the location of another group of infiltrators, which led to their deaths.

"The information led to a search operation in Bandi Monabal area in Kashmir by state police and the army. Four unidentified terrorists were killed in retaliatory firing when they attacked a search team," the NIA said.

Reacting to the development, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office Jitendra Singh said: "The perpetrators of terrorism cannot for long escape from the adverse outcomes of terrorism."

"As far as the evidence is concerned, the entire world now knows the epicentre of terrorism, at least in this part of Asia and in the Indian subcontinent, is none other than Pakistan," he added.