New Delhi: “Three of the terrorists who carried out the Pahalgam massacre have been eliminated by security forces” in a joint operation by the Army, CRPF and Jammu and Kashmir Police near Srinagar, Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
The terrorists were killed Monday in an operation dubbed Mahadev but officials had held back in identifying them conclusively as the Pahalgam attackers.
Participating in a special discussion on Operation Sindoor, Shah also attacked the opposition party for giving a “clean chit” to Pakistan for the April 22 Pahalgam attack. Had the Congress opposed Partition, the problem of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir would never have occurred, he said.
Shah was referring to former Home Minister P Chidambaram’s recent remarks that those behind the Pahalgam massacre could be “homegrown terrorists”.
Giving details of ‘Operation Mahadev’, Shah said the slain terrorists have been identified as Suleman alias Faizal, Afghani and Jibran.
“While Suleman was an A-category commander of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Afghani was also an A-category LeT terrorist. Jibran too was a notorious and wanted terrorist. All these three involved in the killing of our citizens at Baisaran valley in Pahalgam have now been eliminated,” he said.
Shah said the identity of the terrorists was confirmed by those detained for sheltering and providing them with food ahead of the Pahalgam attack.
“Prime Minister Narendra Modi, through Operation Sindoor, ensured that the masterminds of the Pahalgam attack were eliminated. And yesterday, in Operation Mahadev, those terrorists who were involved were eliminated,” he said.
Describing the Pahalgam attack as barbaric, Shah said innocent civilians were brutally killed in front of their families after being asked about their religion.
Expressing condolences for those killed in Pahalgam and during Pakistani shelling on civilians, he said civilians were martyred and some gurdwaras and temples damaged due to Pakistani firing.
“Terrorists are now being sent from Pakistan to Jammu and Kashmir as there are no local terrorists in Kashmir,” Shah said.
He said after the elimination of the three terrorists, he thought this news would spark a wave of joy across treasury and opposition benches. “But opposition faces are gloomy,” he said.
Describing Pakistan as the root of all terrorism, he said Pakistan was a mistake committed by the Congress. “Had they rejected Partition, there would have been no Pakistan,” he added.
Referring to Chidambaram’s statement, Shah said it was extremely unfortunate that a former home minister was saying what evidence was there.
“What are they trying to prove? Whom are they trying to protect? They say that the terrorists were not Pakistani, and in this way, a former home minister from Congress is trying to give Pakistan a clean chit. By saying this, Chidambaram wants to suggest that if the terrorists were not Pakistani, then why did we attack Pakistan,” he said, adding this was a clear conspiracy to protect Pakistan.
Shah said under Operation Sindoor, Indian forces attacked targets 100 km inside Pakistan and India could expose state sponsored terrorism in Pakistan.
He said India’s armed forces crippled Pakistan’s defence systems in such a manner that the neighbouring country had no choice but to request India to halt attacks.
“In 1948, Indian armed forces were in a decisive position to take back Pakistan occupied Kashmir but then PM Jawaharlal Nehru declared unilateral ceasefire,” he said.
In 1971, Shah said, 93,000 Pakistani soldiers surrendered and India had 15,000 sq km of Pakistan territory under control, but still PoK was not taken back.
During the 1962 war with China, then PM Nehru bade goodbye to Assam in a speech on Akashvani, he said.
Shah said between 2005 and 2011, there were 27 terrorist attacks but what did the Congress government do, they just sent dossiers to Pakistan.
“Terrorists now sent from Pakistan to J&K as no local terrorists in Kashmir… Scrapping of Article 370 has destroyed the terror ecosystem in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.
Attacking Congress, Shah said underworld don Dawood Ibrahim fled in 1986 when Rajiv Gandhi’s government was in power, terrorists Syed Salahuddin, Tiger Memon, Anis Ibrahim Kaskar fled in 1993 when Congress government was in power and when Riyaz Bhatkal fled in 2007 and Iqbal Bhatkal fled in 2010, then again it was a Congress government.
“The answer they demanded from me has already been given by our security forces. Now let Rahul Gandhi answer why these people fled,” he said.
Shah said the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) was scrapped by the Manmohan Singh government in its first cabinet meeting after coming to power in 2004.
“The country deserves to know who benefitted from Congress repealing POTA? Those opposed to POTA will never appreciate Narendra Modi’s anti-terror policies,” he said.
Meanwhile, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh informed Rajya Sabha that the “three terrorists involved in the Pahalgam attack have been killed by Indian forces”.
Initiating a debate on Operation Sindoor in the Rajya Sabha, Singh congratulated the forces for killing three terrorists who were involved in the attack in which 26 people were killed.
“I congratulate the forces for killing three terrorists who carried out the Pahalgam terror attack in April. These are the terrorists who killed people in Pahalgam,” the Defence Minister said.
Singh said post the Pahalgam attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting with the service chiefs, and gave them freehand to use their wisdom, strategic understanding and regional security situation to decide on the response.
He said the military leadership also showed maturity, and stressed that India’s response – Operation Sindoor – was aimed at giving a clear message that India will take strong action and go to any extent against terror.
“Our action was in self defence, it was not expansionist…The aim was to destroy terror infrastructure and give the message of zero tolerance for terror,” Singh said.
“The politic-military objective was to punish Pakistan for using terrorism as a proxy war,” he added.
Singh said Pakistan’s Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) urged India to stop the hostilities, and India accepted it on the condition that the operation would be suspended, not ended.
“If Pakistan commits any terror incidents in future, we will relaunch Operation Sindoor without hesitation,” he said.
Meanwhile, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday gave a blow-by-blow account in the Lok Sabha of ‘Operation Mahadev’ undertaken by the security forces and culminated on Monday with the killing of the three terrorists.
Witness identifications, a midnight flight to facilitate forensic ballistics of weapons recovered from the three terrorists killed in Dachigam, Srinagar, and an early morning confirmation from scientists that the trio carried out the Pahalgam attack — all this happened in less than 24 hours.
Indian agencies have “ample” evidence to say that these were Pakistani terrorists affiliated to the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), Shah told the House.
He said ‘Operation Mahadev’ began on May 22 as part of a security plan that was drawn a day after the terrorists gunned down 26 civilians in the April 22 attack in the scenic Baisaran valley of Pahalgam.
The first decision taken in the security review meeting held on April 23 was to ensure that the “brutal killers” should “not be allowed” to escape to Pakistan.
Shah said it all began after the Intelligence Bureau (IB) received a “human intelligence” on May 22 about the presence of some terrorists in the Dachigam forest and the agency, along with the Army, deployed “indigenous” instruments to capture their signals and verify the said information.
The sensors picked up the presence of the terrorists after “five human assets” were sent to Dachigam on July 22 and the Army’s elite 4 PARA commando unit along with Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Jammu and Kashmir Police surrounded them, he said.
The three terrorists were neutralised by the joint team of security forces. When their bodies were brought to Srinagar, “four people” identified them, the minister said.
“We were not satisfied yet (if these were the terrorists who carried out the Pahalgam attack)…,” Shah said, adding that a special plane took off from Srinagar around Monday midnight and landed in Chandigarh with the three rifles seized from the terrorists.
The Central Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) in Chandigarh had already analysed the bullet shells recovered from the Pahalgam attack site and the experts at the facility fired “all night” from the three rifles flown in from Srinagar to generate more bullet shells, he said.
The two sets of bullets matched and it was established that it was these guns and terrorists who killed the innocents in Pahalgam, he said.
Waving the ballistic report in the House, Shah said six scientists “cross-checked” it and they confirmed its findings in a video call to him at 4:46 am on Tuesday.
The scientists told me that these were “100 percent those bullets which were fired in Pahalgam”, he said.
On the investigation underway in this case, Shah said the government handed over the probe to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) after Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)/The Resistance Front (TRF) claimed responsibility for the attack.
The TRF is the LeT’s frontal organisation.
He said the NIA undertook a “long and tiring” investigation spanning 3,000 hours and questioned 1,055 people, including the family members of those killed in the attack, tourists, ponywallahs, photographers, various shopkeepers present in the area and their employees.
A sketch was made on the basis of these discussions and questioning. On May 22, Bashir and Parvez, who provided shelter and food to these terrorists, were identified. They were arrested by the NIA.
The two told the NIA that they kept the terrorists in their ‘dhok’ (hut), about 2 km from Baisaran valley, when they came to them around 8 pm on April 21. Two of them wore black overalls while the third was in disguise.
They also told the NIA that the terrorists carried three sophisticated rifles. They ate food, had tea and also took some eatables, salt, chilli and spices when they left.
Shah said the mother of the two arrested men also “identified” the bodies of the three terrorists, apart from some others who helped them.
He said the forces have recovered Pakistani voter IDs from two of the slain terrorists, apart from some Pakistan-made chocolates.
He identified the terrorists as LeT commander Suleiman alias Faizal Jat, Jibran and Afghani.
Shah said they all were ‘A’ grade terrorists and some of them were also involved in the October 2024 ‘Z Morh’ tunnel attack in Ganderbal district.
