NIA registers case to investigate Kabul gurdwara attack

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, April 1

 The anti-terror probe agency NIA on Wednesday registered an FIR in a case relating to terror attack on a Gurdwara at Kabul, Afghanistan. The agency said it has registered the case under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) and under the provisions of Section 6 (8) of the NIA Act and started an investigation into the recent attack.

On March 25, unknown gunmen had stormed into a Gurdwara in the Shor Bazar area in Kabul and fired indiscriminately, killing 27 devotees and injuring several others. An Indian citizen Tian Singh, a resident of Delhi’s Greater Kailash Part-1, was also killed in the attack.

About 150 persons were inside the Gurdwara when the attack took place. The proscribed terrorist organisation, Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), had claimed the responsibility for the attack.

In an official statement the NIA said as per the preliminary investigation, one Muhsin from Trikkaripur, Kasargod, Kerala, and others who had joined ISKP, are suspected to have been involved in the attack.

This is the first case of its kind which NIA has registered as the recent amendments in the NIA Act, which empowered the agency to investigate terror cases that are committed at any place outside India against the Indian citizens or affecting the interest of India.

Sources said the NIA will immediately start with the technical part of the investigation as suspected suicide attacker Mushin’s family had received a message on Telegram from Islamic State, informing them of his death.

Noting that in the wake of Covid-19 outbreak, there may not be an immediate foreign travel, sources in the agency said the investigations will begin from India and in due course Afghanistan police and authorities would be contacted. “A team of NIA would be sent but it is not needed in these circumstances. And would be at a much later stage,” sources in the NIA said.