‘By the time you see this, I’ll be in Heaven’: Adil Ahmad Dar
Minutes after a ghastly suicide attack on a CRPF convoy in Awantipora town of Pulwama, Jaish-e-Mohammad, the outfit which claimed responsibility for the attack, released a video of the person believed to have carried out the fidayeen strike.
Adil alias Waqas of Kakapora in south Kashmir can be seen in the video, sitting in the backdrop of the Jaish flag, brandishing several sophisticated automatic rifles, starting the video by saying, “By the time this video reaches you, I will be in heaven, I have spent one year as a militant with JeM and this is my last message for the people of Kashmir.”
Waqas goes on to boast about the attacks against India carried out by Jaish in the past — ICA18 hijacking, 2001 Parliament attack, Nagrota attack, Uri attack, and Pathankot IAF base attack.
He also sends “a message for North Kashmir”, saying that people in south Kashmir have been fighting against India and that it was now time for people from north and central Kashmir as well as Jammu to join them.
“By killing few of our militant commanders, you can’t weaken us,” the suicide bomber says in the video. He also mentions the recent sniper and IED attacks against security forces in Kashmir.
Sources in local police say Adil Hussain Dar, from Gundibagh, Pulwama, went missing on March 19, 2016 along with two other friends — Tauseef and Waseem. Tauseef’s elder brother Manzoor Ahmad Dar was a militant who was killed in 2016. Adil was a dropout from school and was working as a mason. He also led prayers in local mosque. He has two brothers.
Thursday’s attack is one of the biggest militant attacks in Kashmir in the last two decades. The last time a suicide attack of such magnitude was carried out was in 2001 when JeM carried out a suicide bomb attack outside the Srinagar secretariat, killing 38 people and injuring 40. This attack is also bigger than the 2016 Uri attack in which 19 army men were killed.
This is the second fidayeen attack carried out by JeM in the last 13 months. Last year in August, three JeM fidayeen militants had attacked the police headquarters in Pulwama, in which five security personnel were killed. The fidayeen in this attack was 17-year-old Fardeen Ahmed, son of a serving police official. The teen had also recorded a similar video before the attack, saying, “By the time this video is released, I would be in paradise.”
