'Pak sheltering Pulwama attack accused Masood Azad': MEA says 'enough evidence shared'

The Indian government has slammed Pakistan as it continues to fail to take action against terror-outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad, even after it claimed the responsibility for the Pulwama attack. Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava affirmed that the chargesheet in the matter, which has been filed after a year and a half of the incident, aims to address the act of terrorism. Srivastava has also informed that Jaish-e-Mohammad and its leadership have taken shelter in Pakistan and that the Indian govt has shared enough evidence pertaining to the same with the neighbouring country. 

Addressing the media on Thursday, MEA Spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said, "Jaish-e-Mohammad had claimed the responsibility of the Pulwama attack. The organization and its leadership is in Pakistan. It is regrettable that Masood Azhar, the first accused in the chargesheet continues to find shelter in Pakistan. Enough evidence has been shared with Pakistan but it continues to evade responsibility."

The MEA Spokesperson also hit out at the neighbouring country for failing to take any credible action against the perpetrators of the 26/11 terror attack in Mumbai.

Meanwhile, Pakistan has 'rejected' the chargesheet filed by the NIA in the matter and continues to maintain that it is being 'implicated' by India. Releasing a statement on Wednesday, Pakistan's Foreign Office claimed that India's chargesheet is a 'mischievous attempt’ to implicate Islamabad and has been filed keeping in view 'domestic political interests'. 

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NIA files chargesheet

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) filed a chargesheet against 19 terrorists involved in the Pulwama terror attack on Tuesday including Pakistani citizen and key conspirator Masood Azhar Alvi. According to sources, the NIA has filed a 13,500-page charge sheet naming several Pakistani nationals as accused in the case. Others named in the charge sheet include Pakistani nationals Rouf Asgar Alvi, Ammar Alvi, Mohd Ismail, Muhammad Umar Farooq, Mohd Kamran Ali, and Qari Yasir. 

Out of the 19 names in the charge sheet, 7 are said to be in NIA's custody, another 7 are said to have been encountered by the forces, and 5 are said to be in Pakistan. The 7 JeM operatives under NIA's custody include Mohammad Abbas Rather, Tariq Ahmad Shah, Mohammad Iqbal Rather,  Shakir Bashir Magrey, Waiz-ul-Islam, Insha Jan, and Bilal Ahmed Kuchey.

READ | Pakistan Link To Pulwama EXPOSED: NIA Recovers Pak Identity Card Of Key Accused

Pulwama terror attack

At around 3 pm on February 14, 2019, a Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist drove an explosive-laden SUV into a convoy of vehicles carrying CRPF personnel on the Srinagar-Jammu national highway in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district. This resulted in the killing of 40 CRPF personnel. Around 80 kg of explosives were used for the attack.

According to NIA sources, Pakistan used Adil Ahmad Dar, a local resident who rammed an explosive-laden car into a CRPF convoy in Pulwama, as a suicide bomber to project the attack as a result of a home-grown militancy against “India’s occupation of Kashmir”. Around 12 days after the terror attack, in the wee hours of February 26, Indian Air Force (IAF) jets had bombed the JeM camp in Balakot, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province as a retaliation to the cowardly attack.