Pak terrorist Naved was asked to target Amarnath Yatra by Lashkar

In a major revelation, arrested Pakistan terrorist Mohammad Naved Yakub has confessed before his National Investigation Agency (NIA) interrogators that the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) had assigned him and others the job to target the Amarnath Yatra in south Kashmir Himalayas, but due to heavy security cover their attempt to attack the annual pilgrimage twice on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway could not be carried out.

Sources said Naved and another Pakistani terrorist Abu Aseem were sent to recce the Srinagar-Jammu-Pathankot national highways from July 9 to July 12 by LeT south Kashmir chief Abu Qasim, along with second-in-command of the terror outfit, Abu Dujana. The duo was ferried by truck driver Khurshid Ahmad Bhat alias Surya, a resident of south Kashmir's Pulwama district, who was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) last week. They also travelled in the truck with arms and ammunition without any checks for 300 kms on the national highway.

Sources also added that before the attack on a Border Security Force (BSF) convoy on August 5 in Narsu Nallah in Udhampur, Naved was moving freely with Abu Aseem in Jammu, Bari Brahmana and Sidhra without being intercepted by the police and security agencies. Naved is also said to have disclosed before the NIA team that it was Abu Qasim's decision to replace Aseem with Mohammad Nomen alias Nomin for the Udhampur attack on the BSF convoy.

Naved has also told the NIA sleuths that he was trained by some of the top Lashkar commanders to be a fidayeen (suicide) attacker and that his 4-member group was launched from Halan area of Pakistan by the Lashkar chief Hafiz Sayeed's son Talha for a carrying out a major suicide strike in Jammu and Kashmir. During the interrogation following a lie-detector test, Naved told the NIA interrogators that Hafiz Saeed had also delivered motivational speeches to the recruits and exhorted them to kill Hindus in India.

Meanwhile, the NIA last Friday released photographs of Abu Okasha and Abu Qasim alias Abdur Rehman, the two accomplices of Naved who are wanted by the agency.

Naved, who was nabbed by villagers after he ambushed the BSF convoy in Udhampur along with an associate, had killed two troopers and injured 11 others in the attack. The Pakistani terrorist, who was trained with other 25 others, told that besides physical training, all the recruits were shown videos about 'military oppression' against Kashmiris. Apart from Pakistanis, there were Afghan and Pashtoon youths in the training camps, he had said.

Naved, who is in his early 20s and hails from Faisalabad in Pakistan, is said to be the odd one in a typical middle-class family. His elder brother and brother-in-law are reportedly both college lecturers. Investigators said, Naved studied only till Class 5 and was heavily into gambling.