New Delhi: A top Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) commander has told the party’s terrorists in Kashmir that it was becoming increasingly difficult to supply them with ‘necessary items’. Indian intelligence has said that the man who made the comment is Mufti Rauf Asghar. He is an operational commander in JeM. By ‘necessary items’ he meant weapons and explosives.
The message was sent soon after the gunbattle at Ban toll plaza in Jammu’s Nagrota. It led to the elimination of four heavily armed Pakistani terrorists after crossing the border.
Mufti Asghar is the younger brother of JeM chief and UN designated global terrorist Masood Azhar who is reported to have been under treatment for a life-threatening spine aliment. Asghar is considered the terror group’s de facto chief in his elder brother’s absence and had overseen the infiltration of the four terrorists from Bahawalpur in Pakistan’s Punjab province.
The 19 November encounter was a huge setback for the terror group, given how heavily Asghar had invested in their training and infiltration. Border Security Force officials who have seen the 200-metre tunnel dug under the border fence said the engineering detail that had gone into digging the tunnel in Pakistan’s Shakargarh area was a surprise. They were well-armed too.11 AK-47 rifles, 3 pistols, 29 hand grenades and 6 grenades to be fired from an under barrel grenade launcher were seized.
According to intelligence reports, the infiltration of the four terrorists was part of an effort by Pakistan-based terrorist groups to prepare for a major drive in Jammu and Kashmir. They have become especially active after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The reports also said that the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) is also mobilising cadres from its Chelabandi camp in Muzaffarabad to fresh locations in Neelum Valley. Hizbul Mujahideen is providing training to nearly 400 terrorists at a newly constructed facility in the forest area of Oghi in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KPK).
The intelligence reports indicates that the Al Badr group is exploring ways to infiltrate into India from Bangladesh.