One of the accused in the 2019 Pulwama attack, Sameer Ahmad Dar, who was thought to have been gunned down in a July 31 encounter along with Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) commander Mohammad Ismail Alvi alias Lambu, is alive and bolstering the terror outfit’s activities in the Valley, according to people in the Indian security establishment.
The operation was the result of a coordinated strike by the counter-insurgency Victor Force, headed by Major General Rashim Bali, in the Nagberan-Tarsar forest area of Pulwama.
It has now emerged that the second terrorist killed with Lambu (a relative of JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar) in the July operation was a Pakistani national who is yet to be identified, the people cited above told HT.
Lambu, who is from Bahawalpur, Pakistan, and was one of the main perpetrators of the February 14, 2019 Pulwama attack, was killed in the encounter.
The other terrorist killed was identified as Sameer Dar, 22, a local from Pulwama, who joined JeM in 2018. However, when security agencies later showed his body to the family, it was confirmed the second terrorist was not Dar. On closer examination, his photos, too, did not match the body, one of the people said.
