Jammu blasts: Government school teacher arrested, ‘perfume IED’ seized

Explaining the mechanism, Singh told reporters in Jammu that the ‘perfume IED’ could have blown off causing maximum damage to a person when he or she would try to spray the perfume or open the bottle.

‘Perfume IED’ was seized from the accused identified as Arif.

The teacher who owed allegiance to the terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba was apprehended following an investigation into the twin IED explosions in Jammu’s Narwal area in which nine civilians were injured on January 21. During questioning, he confessed to his involvement in other blasts at Shastri Nagar in Jammu city and a speeding bus near Katra.

In order to destroy all evidence showing his involvement in the twin blasts, Arif had even burnt his clothes and shoes which he wore while planting the IEDs and damaged his mobile phone, the DGP pointed out.

The police team led by SSP Jammu Chandan Kohli barely slept during the night to work out this blind case in a short span of 11 days, the officer said.

While there were no casualties in the Shastri Nagar explosion in February 2022, four people were killed and over 20 injured in another blast inside a passenger bus near Katra on May 13. Two explosions rocked the Narwal area of Jammu city on January 21 this year in which nine people were injured.

Used different types of IEDs at all three places, says DGP

Pointing out that Arif used different types of IEDs at all three places, the J&K Police chief said that Arif had used a timer-fitted IED in Shastri Nagar, and he planted two IEDs in the Jammu-bound passenger bus.

“Both the IEDs were sticky bombs, a number of which were seized by the police in Kathua district in October last year, Arif had planted both the IEDs under a seat which had been fixed over the fuel tank of the bus. This was done so that the fuel tank of the vehicle would also serve as another explosive device,” the police chief explained.

DGP Dilbagh Singh said that in Narwal, the arrested teacher used tiffin IEDs which he planted in two different vehicles on the night of January 20 and fixed their timings at such an interval that after the first explosion, the second IEDs goes off when the police and security forces reach the spot, so as to cause maximum damage.

However, the police and security forces followed the SOP after the first explosion and sealed the entire area as a result of which, there had been no casualties during the second blast, he added. While the first IED weighed only 750 grams, the second IED was over 1 kg and it would have caused more casualties if the police and security forces had not followed the SOP after the first explosion, Singh pointed out.

Arif was engaged as a school teacher under the Rehbar-e-Taleem programme in 2010 and his services were regularised by the government in 2016. He had come in contact with LeT’s Qasim in 2019 through his maternal uncle Qamar Din who had settled in Pakistan’s Karachi long ago. Qasim, who also hailed from Reasi, too had settled in Pakistan after crossing over the Line of Control (LoC).