“Perfume IED”, first ever explosive device seen by police in over 30 years of militancy in J&K, seized from him.
BUNTY MAHAJAN
JAMMU, FEBRUARY 2: The Jammu and Kashmir Police on Thursday claimed to have arrested a government school teacher and worked out cases of IED explosions at three different places in Jammu city and near Katra town, besides recovering a “perfume IED’’, the first ever such an explosive device in an over 30 years of history of terror violence in the Union Territory.
Pointing out that the “perfume IED’’ was an explosive device fabricated inside a 300 ml perfume bottle which could explode causing grievous injuries to its handler in case he either pressed its spray handle or removed it, police identified the arrested teacher at Mohammad Arif Sheikh of Reasi district’s Gulabgarh area. The IED was fabricated in such a manner that it was difficult for one to easily identify it as no wires were seen coming out of the perfume bottle.
However, police were yet to dismantle it to find out its trigger mechanism and the nature of explosives used in it.
Meanwhile. Director General of Police, Dilbagh Singh, said that the arrested teacher owed allegiance to Lashkar-e-Toiba and he had been in contact with it for the past three years. His apprehension came during investigations into the twin blasts at Narwal last month by a police team under the supervision of Jammu SSP Chandan Kohli.
During questioning, he confessed his involvement in IED explosions at Shahstri Nagar in Jammu city and a passenger bus near Katra as well.
Pointing out that Arif in order to evade his apprehension had had burnt his clothes and the shoes which he was wearing during the planting of IEDs, DGP said that he had also damaged his mobile phone.
While there had been no casualties in Shastri Nagar explosion caused during February 2022, four people were killed and over 20 injured in an explosion inside a passenger bus near Katra on May 13 the same year. Two explosions rocked Narwal area of Jammu city on January 21 this year in which nine people were injured.
Pointing out that Arif used different types of IEDs at all the three places, the J&K Police chief said that while Arif had used a timer fitted IED in Shastri Nagar, he confessed having planted not one but two IEDs in the Jammu bound passenger bus from Katra town. Both the IEDs were sticky bombs, a number of which were seized by police in Kathua district in October last year, DGP said, adding that he had planted both the IEDs under a seat which had been fixed over the fuel tank of the bus. This he had done to use the fuel tank of the vehicle also as an explosive during the explosion, he added.
In Narwal, the arrested teacher used tiffin IEDs which he planted in two different vehicles on the night of January 20 and fixed their timings at such an interval that after the first explosion, the second IEDs goes off when police and security forces reach the spot, DGP Dilbagh Singh said, adding that he had planned this so as to cause them maximum damage.
However, the police and security forces and security forces followed the SOP after the first explosion and sealed the entire area as a result of which, there had been no casualties during the second blast, he added. While the first IED weighed only 750 grams, the second IED was over 1 kg and it would have caused more casualties if the police and security forces had not followed the SOP after the first explosion, he pointed out.
Arif was engaged as a school teacher under Rehbar-e-Taleem programme in 2010 and his services were regularized by the government in 2016.
He had come in contact with LeT’s Qasim in 2019 through his maternal uncle Qamar Din who had settled in Pakistan’s Karachi long ago. Qasim, who also hailed from Reasi, too had settled in Pakistan after crossing over the LoC.
