Why Adil Ahmad Dar Did Not Fit The Profile Of A Suicide Bomber!

A member of the Barelvi movement of Islam, which follows Sufism, Adil Ahmad Dar was not a typical suicide bomber. He would, in fact, confront those who held radical views. The killing of Burhan Wani changed everything.

- Tariq Bhat

Adil Ahmad Dar—who blew himself up to hurt the Indian military—was a follower of Sufism. As a member of the Barelvi movement of Islam, which espouses Sufism, believes in saints and visits to shrines, Dar did not fit the profile of a suicide bomber. In police records, he was listed as a category C militant, far below the more lethal A++ or A+ ones.

Not many knew of Dar outside his village of Gundibagh, in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir, until February 14. On the fateful Thursday, Dar crashed an explosive-packed vehicle into a Central Reserve Police Force convoy at Lethpora in Pulwama, killing 40 personnel and injuring several others. The CRPF convoy of 78 vehicles, carrying 2,547 personnel, had left for Srinagar from Jammu early in the morning, in regular vehicles. As a rule, after crossing Jawahar Tunnel, the occupants move into bulletproof bunker vehicles at Qazigund in Anantnag, south Kashmir. But on that day, as the convoy was larger than usual, only a part of it could be moved into bunker vehicles. The heavy snowfall and landslides in the state had forced the closure of the Srinagar-Jammu highway, and many CRPF jawans had been stuck in Jammu. As their periodic deployment had not been possible because of the weather, large convoys were used to transport them en masse to Srinagar. Notably, on February 4, another convoy of 91 vehicles, carrying 2,871 personnel, had reached Srinagar from Jammu safely.

Investigators, including a team of the National Investigation Agency, the state police and experts from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, collected samples of the debris of the targeted bus for forensic analysis. They found the bumper of a red Maruti Eeco, which Dar was driving, a metal piece and parts of a jerry can, in which about 30kg of explosives could have fit.