SOURCE: THE WEEK
Foreign secretary Harshvardhan Shringla on Monday briefed a select group of Heads of Missions in New Delhi on the planned terrorist attack in Nagrota district in Jammu, which was foiled on November 19.
Among the ambassadors briefed were Kenneth Juster of the United States of America, Emmanuel Lenain of France, Nikolay Kudashev of Russia and Satoshi Suzuki of Japan.
Shringla discussed with them at length the implications of the incident on security, diplomacy and the battle against terrorism.
According to sources, the ambassadors were provided with a detailed information docket, giving the details of the incident as well as lists of items and ammunition that were recovered from terrorists, which clearly indicated their Pakistani origins.
They were also briefed on how the terrorists got into India. The discovery of an underground tunnel in the Samba sector makes it clear how these men entered India. The four terrorists were neutralised by security forces on November 19.
The FS even shared with them the preliminary investigations by the police intelligence authorities, the markings on the recovered AK47 rifles and other items, based on which the investigators concluded that the terrorists belonged to Pakistan-based proscribed terror outfit Jaish-e- Mohammad.
He told them that this incident is part of Pakistan’s ongoing terror campaign in J&K. In 2020 alone, there have 200 incidents of terrorist violence while 199 terrorists were neutralised.
The Nagrota incident specially was part of an ongoing effort by the JeM to sabotage the district development council elections in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and subvert the democratic processes. Security agencies had earlier revealed that the terrorists were planning the biggest strike since the Pulwama attack in March 2019, this time to coincide with the eleventh anniversary of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks.
Details of JeM’s involvement in previous such incidents were also shared.
