PM Modi pays homage to ‘brave heroes’ killed in Pulwama terror attack

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday paid tributes to the CRPF personnel killed in a terror attack in Pulwama on this day in 2019. He said on X, “I pay homage to the brave heroes who were martyred in Pulwama. Their service and sacrifice for our nation will always be remembered.”

The Pulwama attack remains the deadliest terror attack on India's state security personnel in Kashmir since 1989. The perpetrator was identified as Adil Ahmad Dar, a 22-year old from Kakapora.

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.

Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed responsibility for the attack. They also released a video of the assailant Adil Ahmad Dar, a 22-year-old from Kakapora who had joined the group a year earlier.

In a retributive strike, the Indian Air Force had bombed alleged terrorist camps in Pakistan's Balakot.

Notably, the Indian government had allegedly ignored at least eleven intelligence inputs from multiple sources, including by the Indian intelligence agency Intelligence Bureau and Kashmir Police, before the attack. Satya Pal Malik, who was the governor of the state at the time, later alleged in an interview with Karan Thapar that the Prime Minister Narendra Modi asked him to remain silent on security lapses by his administration.

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.