Jammu and Kashmir Police have arrested a government school teacher turned Lashkar terrorist and recovered a perfume IED bomb from him. Arif, a resident of Jammu & Kashmir’s Reasi district, was arrested while police were investigating the twin blasts in Narwal on 21 January, where nine people were injured.
The Jammu and Kashmir police chief Dilbagh Singh said that Arif had also confessed to his involvement in the attack on a bus carrying Vaishno Devi pilgrims in which 4 people were killed in May last year. He also said this was the first time that such type of a bomb was recovered from any terrorist operating in Jammy and Kashmir. The perfume bottle IED device would have exploded if anyone tried to press or open it.
“We have seen previously that various types of IEDs have been used by terrorists with explosive materials, sticky bombs and the timer-fitted ones, but this time we have recovered a new type of IED, which is the ‘perfume IED’. This IED is like a perfume bottle but contains explosive material. Since the IED is new to us, experts will see how harmful and how powerful it can be,” said Singh.
It has been learned that the primary objective of Arif was to target innocent people with these IEDs and to trigger communal hatred in the Jammu region. Arif has revealed that these IEDs were air-dropped via drones from across the border.
Singh also added, “Arif is a government employee and is an active terrorist of the Lashkar-e-Taiba outfit. He will not only lose his job, but we will file a strong case against him. Although he has very cleverly burnt all the evidence like his clothes, shoes and even his mobile phone. But police worked hard on even small inputs and leads that led to the arrest of Arif”.