In one of the deadliest terror attacks in J&K's three decades of militancy, a Jaish suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a CRPF bus in Pulwama district, killing 40 personnel.
A day after the Indian army gunned down Pulwama attack mastermind Ghazi Rasheed, Lt. General Kanwal Jeet Singh Dhillon on Tuesday said within 100 hours of the February 14 Pulwama attack on a CRPF convoy that left 40 troopers dead, it eliminated the top Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) leadership that planned and executed the deadly carnage.
"I would like to inform that in less than 100 hours of Pulwama terrorist attack, we eliminated have JeM leadership in the valley which was being handled by JeM from Pakistan," Dhillon said at a press briefing in Srinagar on Tuesday.
Giving a stern warning to sympathisers of the terror movement in the state, he said: "In a Kashmiri society, a mother has a great role to play. Through you, I would request the mothers of Kashmir to please request their sons who have joined terrorism to surrender and get back to the mainstream. Anyone who has picked up the gun will be killed and eliminated, unless he surrenders,” Lt Gen Dhillon reiterated.
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He also made it clear that the Pulwama attack was carried out by the JeM, which is based in Pakistan, with the active support of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Pakistan Army.
Earlier on Monday, four army men and a Kashmir police constable were killed in an encounter in Kashmir's Pulwama. Top Jaish-e-Mohammad commander Ghazi Rasheed along with two other militants was also killed.
Kamran alias Ghazi Rasheed was the mastermind of the Pulwama terror attack which took place on February 14.
According to police sources, Rasheed was a Pakistani "chief operational commander" of the Jaish-e-Mohammad. He was a dreaded terrorist, known for radicalizing, recruiting and training terrorists in the Kashmir Valley.
Rasheed, who was an Afghan war veteran and an IED specialist, was the one who trained Adil Dar, the Jaish-e-Mohammed terror commander who drove the explosive-laden vehicle into the CRPF convoy.
"Rasheed had trained the suicide bomber who had attacked the CRPF convoy with a car laden with explosives that led to the martyrdom of 40 soldiers," police officials said.
"Ghazi Abdul Rasheed infiltrated in mid-December to Kashmir," officials added. The police believes that he had come to Kashmir as the militants the area were facing pressure from the forces.
Forty Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel were killed in Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday when a Jaish-e-Mohammed suicide bomber rammed a vehicle carrying over 100 kg of explosives into their bus in Pulwama district.
More than 2,500 Central Reserve Police Force personnel, many of them returning from leave to rejoin duty in the Valley, were travelling in the convoy of 78 vehicles when they were ambushed on the Srinagar-Jammu highway at Latoomode in Awantipora.
The attack was the worst-ever attack in Jammu and Kashmir since militancy erupted in the state in1989.
(With inputs from agencies)