Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Kashmir said all three militants were recently recruited and one of them was given pistol training in the forest area of Pahalgam.
Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Kashmir Vijay Kumar while addressing a press conference in Srinagar said that three bike-borne newly recruited militants who carried out the attack on the owner of Krishna Dhaba at the busy Dalgate area have been arrested and they have confessed their involvement.
He said that the three militants were lured by The Resistance Front (TRF) commander Gazi, who had tasked the trio to strike at Krishna Dhaba where tourist rush is always high and the shop even remains open during hartals.
He said the charge sheet in the case would be filed soon. He said the attack was carried out to instill fear among tourists on a day when foreign envoys were in Srinagar.
On Wednesday, militants had shot a man working at a popular eatery in Kashmir, Krishna Dhaba, in the Dalgate area of Srinagar evening wounding one person identified as Aakash Mehra.
The IGP said the bike and pistol used in the attack have been seized. He said all three arrested were newly recruited militants and one of them was given pistol training in the forest area of Pahalgam. He said two of the militants belong to Pampore and the third one is from Pulwama.
He said all three have accepted the crime. Kumar said that “police have also recorded their confession statement in a video and it will be produced before the court along with the charge sheet.”
It was the second attack on a businessman in Kashmir. Earlier, on December 31, militants shot dead a goldsmith Satpal Nischal at a busy Srinagar market at Sarai Bala.
Satpal Nischal had been running a jewellery shop at Sarai Bala for several decades. The 70-year-old Nischal became the first person killed in Kashmir apparently for having obtained a certificate under the new domicile law.
The law grants people who have lived in Jammu and Kashmir for more than 15 years the rights to purchase immovable property.