The Lover Boy of Bahawalpur

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The Lover Boy of Bahawalpur: How the Pulwama Case was Cracked
The Lover Boy of Bahawalpur.jpg
First edition
Author Rahul Pandita
LanguageEnglish
Publisher Juggernaut Books
Publication date
23 June 2021
Media typePrint (hardcover)
Pages212
ISBN 978-9391165109

The Lover Boy of Bahawalpur: How the Pulwama Case was Cracked is a non-fiction book written by Rahul Pandita and published in 2021. [1] The book tells the story of a team of National Investigation Agency (NIA) sleuths cracking the 2019 Pulwama attack case. [2] The "lover boy" referred to in the title is Mohammad Umar Farooq (son of Ibrahim Athar, one of the five terrorists who had hijacked the Indian Airlines Flight IC 814 in December 1999), nephew of Jaish founder Masood Azhar and a key accused in the case. [3] [4] He was killed during an encounter a month after Pulwama attack. [5] Rakesh Balwal, the Jammu and Kashmir head of the NIA was tasked with the 2019 Pulwama attack case probe at that time. [6]

Contents

Background

NIA managed to connect the dots at the time of the abrogation of Article 370 when a mobile phone full of lustful messages was recovered after an encounter that killed Umar Farooq.

Key people involved

Reception

The Wire journalist Karan Thapar wrote of the book, "Pandita has an incredible story to tell which some may find hard to believe. Others may be sceptical [...] But there will also be many who will accept Pandita’s detailed story." [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bahawalpur</span> City in Punjab, Pakistan

Bahawalpur is a city in the Punjab province of Pakistan. It is the 11th most populous city of Pakistan and 6th most populous city of Punjab. Bahawalpur is the capital of Bahawalpur Division and is an important cultural and commercial city of South Punjab along with Multan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian Airlines Flight 814</span> 1999 aircraft hijacking

Indian Airlines Flight 814, commonly known as IC 814, was an Indian Airlines Airbus A300 en route from Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal, to Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, India, on Friday, 24 December 1999, when it was hijacked and flown to several locations before landing in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">All Parties Hurriyat Conference</span> Political alliance in Kashmir

All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) is an alliance of 26 political, social and religious organizations formed on 9 March 1993, as a united political front to raise the cause of Kashmiri separatism in the Kashmir conflict. Mehmood Ahmed Saghar was the first convener of the APHC-PAK chapter when the alliance was established in 1993. The alliance has historically been viewed positively by Pakistan as it contests the claim of the Indian government over the State of Jammu and Kashmir. The organisation is split into two factions, with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq as chairman of one faction and Masarat Alam Bhat the chairman of the faction founded by Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harkat-ul-Mujahideen</span> Islamist militant group

Harkat-ul-Mujahideen- al-Islami is a Pakistan-based Islamic jihadist group operating primarily in Kashmir. The group have been considered as having links to Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jaish-e-Mohammed</span> Islamic Jihadist organisation

Jaish-e-Mohammed is a Pakistan-based Deobandi Jihadist militant group active in Kashmir which is widely considered as a islamic terrorist group. The group's primary motive is to separate Kashmir from India and merge it into Pakistan.

Mohammad Masood Azhar Alvi is a radical Islamist and terrorist, being the founder and leader of the Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed, active mainly in the Pakistani-administered portion of the Kashmir region. His actions are not limited to the South Asian region; for instance, BBC News described him as "the man who brought jihad to Britain." On 1 May 2019, Masood Azhar was listed as an international terrorist by the United Nations Security Council.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yasin Malik</span> Kashmiri separatist leader (born 1966)

Yasin Malik is a Kashmiri separatist leader and former militant who advocates the separation of Kashmir from both India and Pakistan. He is the Chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, which originally spearheaded armed militancy in the Kashmir Valley. Malik renounced violence in 1994 and adopted peaceful methods to come to a settlement of the Kashmir conflict. In May 2022, Malik pleaded guilty to charges of criminal conspiracy and waging war against the state, and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

2003 Nadimarg massacre was the killing of 24 Kashmiri Pandits in the village of Nadimarg in Pulwama District of Indian-administered Kashmir on 23 March 2003. The Government of India blamed militants from the Pakistan-based terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba but failed to secure convictions.

Abdul Rauf is a Pakistani Deobandi fundamentalist Islamist militant commander of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), a Deobandi Islamist militant organization which has carried out Islamist militant activities in India & Afghanistan under the support of Pakistan's main intelligence agency.

Rahul Pandita is an Indian author and journalist.

Farooq Ahmed Dar known by his nom de guerre Bitta Karate, is a Kashmiri-separatist militant , who currently serves as the chairman of the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (R) in the Kashmir Valley of Jammu and Kashmir, India.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian Army operations in Jammu and Kashmir</span> Military opration

Indian Army operations in Jammu and Kashmir include security operations such as Operation Rakshak, which began in 1990, Operation Sarp Vinash in 2003 and Operation Randori Behak in 2020. Other operations include humanitarian missions such as Operation Megh Rahat and operations with a social aim such as Operation Goodwill and Operation Calm Down. The Indian Army works in tandem with the other arms of the Indian Armed Forces and security forces in Jammu and Kashmir such as during Mission Sahayata or joint operations.

Kamran Yusuf, also known as Kamran Yousuf is a Kashmiri multimedia journalist. As of 2022, Kamran is a staffer at NewsClick. He also works as a freelance multimedia journalist for various international organisations. In 2017, he was booked under UAPA and lodged at Tihar Jail. Many national as well as international organisations including Committee to Protect Journalists, the International Federation of Journalists, Amnesty International and more issued statements for his immediate release. He got bail after six months and was discharged from all the charges on 16 March 2022 by Delhi court.

The 2019 Pulwama attack occurred on 14 February 2019, when a convoy of vehicles carrying Indian security personnel on the Jammu–Srinagar National Highway was attacked by a vehicle-borne suicide bomber at Lethapora in the Pulwama district of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. The attack killed 40 Indian Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel as well as the perpetrator—Adil Ahmad Dar—who was a local Kashmiri youth from the Pulwama district. The responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist group, Jaish-e-Mohammed. India blamed neighbouring Pakistan for the attack, while the latter condemned the attack and denied having any connections to it. The attack dealt a severe blow to India–Pakistan relations, consequently resulting in the 2019 India–Pakistan military standoff. Subsequently, Indian investigations identified 19 accused. By August 2021, the main accused along with six others had been killed, and seven had been arrested.

The 2019 Balakot airstrike was a bombing raid conducted by Indian warplanes on 26 February 2019 in Balakot, Pakistan, against an alleged terrorist training camp. Open source satellites imagery has revealed that no targets of consequence were hit. The following day, Pakistan shot down an Indian warplane and took its pilot prisoner. Indian anti-aircraft fire downed an Indian helicopter killing six or seven airmen on board, their deaths receiving perfunctory coverage by Indian media. India claimed that a Pakistani F-16 fighter jet was downed, but that claim has been shown to be false. The airstrike was used by India's ruling party to bolster its patriotic appeal in the general elections of April 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2019 India–Pakistan border skirmishes</span> Series of armed skirmishes between India and Pakistan in Kashmir

The 2019 India–Pakistan border skirmishes were a series of armed clashes consisting of cross-border airstrikes and exchanges of gunfire between India and Pakistan across the de facto border in the disputed Kashmir region, which is subject to extensive territorial claims by both countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">People's Anti-Fascist Front</span> Kashmir militant group

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References

  1. Vij, RK (2021-07-18). "How 'The Lover Boy of Bahawalpur' reopens the Pulwama case". The Indian Express. Retrieved 2021-08-17.
  2. Bhardwaj, Ananya (1 July 2021). "Drones threat flagged for long but govt slept over it, journalist-author Rahul Pandita claims". ThePrint. Retrieved 17 August 2021.
  3. Bhardwaj, Ananya (2020-08-25). "Afghanistan training, help from 12 Kashmiris, RDX from Pakistan — how Pulwama was 'planned'". ThePrint. Retrieved 2021-08-17.
  4. Philip, Snehesh Alex (2021-07-31). "JeM terrorist and Pulwama attack conspirator killed in encounter in J&K". ThePrint. Retrieved 2021-08-17.
  5. Sandhu, Kamaljit Kaur (26 August 2021). "NIA traces Pulwama mastermind Jaish commander Umar Farooq's al-Qaeda link". India Today. Retrieved 2021-08-17.
  6. Raaj, Neelam (20 June 2021). "3 things nailed Pulwama mastermind: Adidas jacket, Kashmiri lover, and a damaged mobile". The Times of India. Retrieved 2021-08-17.
  7. "Watch | The 'Incredible Strokes of Luck' Behind How Pulwama Terrorists Were Identified". The Wire. 25 June 2021. Retrieved 2021-08-17.