While each step of the February 2019 Pulwama attack was carried out on the directions of the Jaish-e-Muhammad bosses in Pakistan, the target itself — a convoy of vehicles carrying CRPF personnel — was chosen by a 22-year-old shopkeeper from Kakapora in the same South Kashmir district, investigators have found.
This man's contribution to the attack was highly appreciated by the key planner of the attack, Mohammed Umar Farooq — in a voice message sent to Pakistan, Mohammed Umar compared him to Afzal Guru, the 2001 Parliament attack convict who was hanged in 2013.
In its 13,500-page chargesheet, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has claimed that this man, Shakir Bashir Magrey, a fresh JeM recruit who ran a furniture shop near the Lethpora bridge on the Jammu-Srinagar highway, was the most important local cog in the February 14, 2019 terrorist bombing in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed.
The NIA announced the arrest of Shakir Bashir Magrey in February this year.
After Jaish chief Masood Azhar's nephew Usman Haider was killed in an encounter in Kashmir in October 2018, another of Azhar's nephews, Mohammed Umar, was given the…