The militants who carried out the deadly attack on Army base in Nagrota on Tuesday had travelled to the garrison town from Jammu, InUth has learned from reliable sources.
Sources close to the National Investigative Agency (NIA) team, which started investigations into the attack, said the militants are believed to have been “dropped” in the area by cab through the assistance of “overground workers” of the banned Jaish-e-Muhammad militant outfit.
Not only this, the NIA has found a link between the Nagrota terror strike and the killing of three militants in an encounter with paramilitary BSF in Samba on the international border on the same day.
“There’s a clear-cut relation between Samba and Nagrota incidents, both of which seem to be the handiwork of the same group of militants, who infiltrated onto this side from Jammu border, at the same time with same Pakistani-handlers to guide them,” said an intelligence operative associated with the case. He said initial inputs suggest that militants had managed entry into the Indian-territory at least a day before the attacks.
Seven Army personnel including two officials were martyred in the fierce gunfight when three heavily-armed militants wearing police uniforms stormed the base of 166 Medium Regiment in the wee hours of November 29.
It is the second major attack on an Army installation along the national highway in Jammu region. In 2015, a BSF convoy was attacked in adjacent Udhampur district. As per the NIA, that time militants had reached there from Kashmir, driving down the Srinagar-Jammu national highway. But this time, the militants travelled from Jammu side.
The NIA is presently probing three cases of militant attacks in J&K, including the September 9 attack on the Army base in Uri when 19 soldiers were martyred.
