40 CRPF jawans were killed in Pulwama terror attack (File)

New Delhi:

The NIA arrested one more accused on Thursday in connection with last year’s Pulwama terror attack, in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed, an official said.

Mohammad Iqbal Rather (25), a resident of Jammu and Kashmir’s Budgam, had allegedly facilitated the movement of Muhammad Umar Farooq — a member of the Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the key conspirator in the case — after he infiltrated into the Indian territory in the Jammu region in April 2018, a spokesperson of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said.

Farooq, along with others, had assembled the improvised explosive device (IED) used in the Pulwama attack, he said.

Rather was in constant touch with the Pakistan-based handlers of JeM over secure messaging applications, the official said.

This was the sixth arrest made by the NIA in the case, he added.

Rather, a part of the JeM’s “transportation module”, was in judicial custody since September, 2018 in another case related to the terror outfit and being probed by the premier investigation agency, the official said.

He was produced by the jail authorities before a Special NIA Court in Jammu on Thursday and sent to a seven-day custody of the agency for interrogation, he said.

In March, two persons, including the one who procured chemicals online for making the IED used in the Pulwama attack, were arrested by the NIA.

A man and his daughter, who were allegedly witnesses to the conspiracy behind the audacious attack, were also arrested in March by the NIA, the anti-terror probe agency formed in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.