In a major breakthrough, Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday informed the Lok Sabha that three terrorists involved in the Pahalgam attack have been eliminated in a high-intensity operation by Indian security forces. The joint action, carried out by the Indian Army, CRPF and Jammu and Kashmir Police under the banner of Operation Mahadev, was launched near Srinagar on Monday. Shah revealed that the neutralised terrorists have been identified as Suleman alias Faizal, Afghani, and Jibran.
Weeks of vigil after April 22 attack
The elimination comes as a major success for security forces, who had been on heightened alert since the horrific April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, in which 26 innocent lives were lost. For weeks, personnel on the ground had been relentlessly pursuing leads to track down those responsible. A significant breakthrough came around 14 days ago when a suspicious signal was detected, hinting at the use of encrypted communication -- a telltale sign of terrorist presence.
Chinese device helped trace terrorists
According to media reports, the intercepted signal belonged to a Chinese ultra radio, a device frequently used by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives to send encrypted messages. It was reportedly used during both the planning and execution stages of the Pahalgam attack. Just two days before the final assault, the terrorists reactivated the device, which allowed intelligence teams to zero in on their location in the Dachigam forest area.
Local inputs narrowed search zone
With help from local nomads who provided crucial inputs, security forces were able to narrow down their search to a specific zone in the sprawling Dachigam forest, which spans towards both Anantnag district in South Kashmir and Ganderbal in Central Kashmir, as per a report by Firstpost. Once confident about their location, the teams deployed surveillance drones on Monday morning, successfully capturing visuals of the armed group, the report added.
Following the confirmation, elite units from the Rashtriya Rifles and Para Special Forces commandos scaled the Mahadev hill, leveraging the advantage of surprise and precise intelligence, they launched the final assault and swiftly neutralised all three terrorists in a tightly coordinated encounter.
Pahalgam terror attack
As many as 26 people, mostly tourists, were killed and more than a dozen others injured in the Pahalgam terror attack, which occurred on April 22. This has been termed as one of the biggest terror attacks after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. Days after the attack, Indian Armed Forces launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting key facilities like the JeM and LeT bases in Pakistan as well as PoK. JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar had acknowledged that 10 members of his family and four close associates were killed in India's missile attack.
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