The National Investigation Agency (NIA) Saturday  conducted raids at various places in south Kashmir district and detained several youth for questioning in connection with Nagrota Army camp attack case.

Official sources said that the NIA along with Special Operations Group (SOG) of J&K police and CRPF conducted raids last night in parts of Shopian, including Memander and Aliyarpora. “Several youth were detained during the raid,” they said.

The raids followed after NIA arrested Tariq Ahmad Dar, a resident of Chillipura in Shopian, on Saturday in connection with 2016 Nagrota Army camp attack that left seven soldiers dead.

“Dar, a Pulwama-based timber dealer, assisted Pakistani militants, who carried out the attack,” the NIA had said, adding the accused was arrested in a joint operation with the state police.

Dar’s arrest comes almost a week after the NIA arrested a Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) operative Syed Muneer-Ul-Hasan Qadri for his role in the attack. “Dar disclosed during interrogation that the terror attack was carried out by Pakistan-based JeM,” an NIA spokesperson had said.

The spokesperson had said his revelations corroborate disclosures made by the previously arrested accused Muneer-Ul-Hassan-Qadri of Kupwara, who had revealed that he along with other Valley-based operatives were in touch with the JeM leadership in Pakistan and had received a freshly infiltrated group of three Pakistani militants, a day before the attack.

“They subsequently stayed at a hotel in Jammu and then left the attackers at Nagrota outside the Army camp late at night and proceeded to the Kashmir valley,” he said.

“Dar is being brought from Srinagar to Jammu to be produced before the NIA special judge for seeking police custody,” he added. (UNI)