Hearing on Pulwama terror attack accused bail plea deferred by NIA court

The hearing on the bail plea of Waiz-ul-Islam, an accused in the Pulwama terror attack case, was not taken up today by the special NIA court in Jammu on Thursday as it was closed due to COVID 19 testing.

Waiz-Ul-Islam had moved an application in the special NIA court seeking bail in the case to appear for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) exams. The bail plea was listed to come up for hearing on September 3 but was not taken up.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) had last month filed a chargesheet against Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar Alvi and 18 others in a special NIA court in Jammu in connection with the Pulwama terror attack, in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed.

The main case is slated to come up before the court on September 15.

According to NIA sources, the 13,500-page chargesheet has named several Pakistani nationals as accused in the case including Masood Azhar Alvi, Rouf Asgar Alvi, Ammar Alvi, Mohd Ismail, Muhammad Umar Farooq, Mohd Kamran Ali, and Qari Yasir.

In July, the NIA had informed that it has arrested the seventh accused named, Bilal Ahmed Kuchey, whom the agency has termed as "a terror associate" on July 5.

According to the agency, Kuchey a resident of Hajibal, Kakapora, Jammu and Kashmir, runs a sawmill at his place and harboured and extended logistic support to the Jaish-e- Mohammad (JeM) terrorists involved in the Pulwama attack.

The main perpetrators in the case stayed in his house and Kuchey further introduced them to other over ground workers (OGWs) who provided safe houses during their stay and planning of the attack.

In February last year, 40 CRPF personnel were killed in a JeM-orchestrated terror attack in South Kashmir's Pulwama district. The incident took place when a CRPF convoy, consisting of around 2,500 personnel, was attacked by a suicide bomber who rammed a car laden with explosives into one of the buses on the Jammu-Srinagar highway.