A request would be sent to the US to seek details from a service provider of “virtual SIMs” which were used by the JeM suicide bomber behind the Pulwama attack and his Pakistan and Kashmir-based handlers, officials said.
Piecing together probe from the site of the militant strike,searches carried out by the Jammu and Kashmir police and central securityagencies at an encounter site in Tral as well as other locations, it was foundthat the bomber, Adil Dar, was in constant touch with the JeM across the border,they said.
The main mastermind of the audacious attack, Mudassir Khan,was killed in the encounter in Tral.
Forty CRPF personnel were killed on February 14 when Darrammed his explosive-laden vehicle into a paramilitary force bus at Pulwama insouthern Kashmir. India retaliated after the strike by bombing the Jaishgroup’s hideout in Balakot across the Line of Control.
It was a fairly new modus operandi where militants acrossthe border were using a “virtual SIM”, generated by a service provider in the UnitedStates. In this technology, the computer generates a telephone number and theuser downloads an application of the service provider on their smartphone.
The number is linked to social networking sites likeWhatsApp, Facebook, Telegram or Twitter. The verification code generated bythese networking sites is received on the smartphone and the user is ready.
In case of Pulwama, Dar was in constant touch with the Jaishhandler as well as Mudassir Khan using the same technology, the officials said.
They said the numbers used were pre-fixed with “+1”, theMobile Station International Subscriber Directory Number (MSISDN) number usedfor the United States.
The request to the US will include details of phone numbersthat got in touch with the “Virtual SIM” and who had activated it, they said,adding that Internet Protocol addresses would also be sought.
While the security agencies would attempt to find who hadpaid for the virtual SIM, they were also aware that the militant groups usedforged identities, as was done during the Mumbai 26/11 strikes.
During investigation of the 26/11 attacks it was found thatan amount of USD 229 was wired to Callphonex, via Western Union Money Transferreceipt number 8364307716-0, for activating the Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP)used during the strikes.
The money was received from ‘MadinaTrading’ located inBrescia in Italy and sender was claimed to be Javed Iqbal, a resident ofPakistan-administered-Kashmir (PaK).
However, after Italian police arrested two Pakistani nationalsin 2009, it was alleged that the firm had made nearly 300 transfers in the nameof Iqbal, who probably had never set his foot in Italy.
The Italian police, while concluding the probe, had said the Brescia-based company made several transfers using the identity of innocent, unsuspecting persons, whose identity cards or passports might have been stolen.