Personnel deployed at Nakas (checkpoints) and Road Opening Parties (ROPs) have been instructed to treat such vehicles with “maximum suspicion”, the sources said, adding that instructions have been passed on to seniors to brief their personnel to keep maximum vigil, particularly with regard to abandoned items or suspicious vehicles in their respective jurisdictions.

They said that the leadership in the J&K security architecture has also been asked to ensure increased vigil during the movement of forces in the UT to avoid any Pulwama-like incident.

A VB-IED-type blast is basically executed using a moving vehicle, and Kashmir had seen such an incident in the past, when in 2019 terrorists hit an explosive-laden Maruti EECO car into a bus carrying CRPF personnel in a convoy in Pulwama, killing 40 jawans. In Delhi too, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is investigating the Red Fort Blast case, has termed it a VB-IED attack.

Notably, the heightened alert follows a major breakthrough by the NIA in its probe into the Delhi blast, which killed 13 people and injured several. In a detailed press release issued on November 16, the NIA confirmed that the explosion was triggered using a vehicle-bound IED and announced the arrest of Amir Rashid Ali, a resident of Samboora, Pampore (J&K), who allegedly conspired with the suicide bomber, Umar Un Nabi.

Senior security officials confirmed that the NIA’s revelation that the Red Fort blast was a VB-IED-type attack has further reinforced “our ongoing threat profile, especially the intelligence pointing to JeM’s plans” for a similar strike in in Kashmir and other parts of the country.