Terror Groups Using Women To Carry Out Attacks, Says Kashmir IGP After Arrest Of Burqa-Clad Bomb Thrower

The woman allegedly came in contact with pro-Pakistan separatist Asiya Andrabi, already in jail for a terror funding case registered by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), in 2008.

New Delhi: The desperation of terror groups is such that they are seeking services of women over ground workers for carrying out subversive activities in the valley, officials in Srinagar said.

The statement comes after petrol bomb attack by a burqa-clad woman on a security force bunker in Sopore town of Jammu and Kashmir which has highlighted the situation.

The woman, identified as Hasina Akhtar from the Baramulla area of north Kashmir, was covered in a burqa as seen in CCTV footage of her hurling the petrol bomb at the security bunker in Sopore on Tuesday evening.

There was no injury in the incident and she managed to escape.

She was arrested by Sopore Police on Thursday and it was found out that there are three FIRs registered under UAPA against her, news agency PTI reported Inspector General of Police (Kashmir range), Vijay Kumar, as informing.

As per officials, the woman allegedly came in contact with pro-Pakistan separatist Asiya Andrabi, already in jail for a terror funding case registered by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), in 2008.

Hasina Akhtar was caught on CCTV installed at various places across the valley and later her identity was established after police talked to various sources spread across the apple-town of Sopore as well as the adjacent Handwara district, PTI reported.

One of the cases against the 38-year-old is from 2021 for pasting posters of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group in Handwara of north Kashmir.

According to PTI, officials said that terror groups, facing heat from the security forces, have now resorted to engaging women over ground workers for carrying out their nefarious designs which include hurling grenades or acting as couriers.

Hasina Akhtar is a class 10 passout from Hanafia school, she was arrested by Jammu and Kashmir Police in 2021 and is out on bail since December last year.

Several raids were carried out and Sopore police were actively working on nabbing her.

IGP Kashmir Vijay Kumar told PTI that she was working as an overground worker of LeT.

"We have been noticing employing of women by terror group of late. Last year, two burka-clad women assisted terrorists in an attack on the residential guard of a BJP worker in the outskirts of Srinagar city at Nowgam in which we lost one policeman. Some more such women are on police's radar and we have been handling them professionally," the IGP said.

(With Agency Inputs)

(With Agency Inputs)