National Investigating Agency (NIA) on Friday arrested a truck driver, who had allegedly helped Pakistani terrorist Mohammed Naved Yakub, who was part of the group that attacked a BSF convoy in Udhampur.
The driver, identified as Khursheed Ahmed alias ‘Surya’, said to be an overground operative of the banned LeT, is a resident of Awantipura.
Khursheed, 35, has already served a prison term of two-and-a-half years for alleged drugs smuggling and cases are registered against him for involvement in stone-pelting incidents in 2010 and 2011, they said.
The NIA sources said Khursheed had taken Naved and his accomplice Mohammed Noman alias Momin to Jammu on July 20 on a reconnaissance mission during which the timings of convoys of BSF and Army were marked.
Yakub was captured alive by a group of villagers after the August 5 deadly terror attack on a Border Security Forces convoy in Jammu and Ksahmir’s Udhampur district.
After the August 5 attack, the security agencies had launched a manhunt to nab the truck driver, who ferried Naved along with his accomplice Mohammed Noman alias Momin to Udhampur, and a businessman who is alleged to have paid Rs five lakh to Naved and his handler.
Noman was killed in retaliatory firing by the BSF during the terror attack
Country’s apex terror investigation agency, which took over the case last week, has booked Naved under various sections of Indian Penal Code, including waging war against the nation as well as Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Arms Act.
Two terrorists ambushed and killed two BSF troopers on the Srinagar-Jammu highway in Udhampur district. After one of the terrorists was killed, the other, identified as Naved, fled to a village and took shelter in a house but was overpowered by three villagers.
The BSF has maintained that their convoy was not the intended target. News reports quoted the captured Pakistani as saying that he and his fellow militant wanted to target the ongoing Amarnath Yatra.
