3 terrorists who carried out Pahalgam attack killed in Op Mahadev: Home Minister Amit Shah to Lok Sabha
Giving details of the investigation into the 22 April terror attack, Shah said that the three terrorists were identified as Suleiman alias Faizal Jatt, Afghan and Jibran, adding that their involvement in the attack was confirmed by both forensic analysis and eyewitness accounts.
New Delhi: All three terrorists who carried out the Pahalgam terrorist attack were killed in Operation Mahadev, Union Home Minister Amit Shah informed the Lok Sabha on Tuesday.
'All three terrorists behind the Pahalgam terror attack have now been killed,' he asserted.
Twenty-six people, including a Nepalese national, were killed and several others injured in what was one of the deadliest attacks in the Kashmir Valley in recent years.
Shah recalled that a high-level security meeting was held in Srinagar, including heads of the intelligence and investigative agencies, on 23 April, in which deliberation took place on how to stop the terrorists from fleeing the country.
The Intelligence Bureau (IB), he said, received a tip-off from a human intelligence source on 22 May regarding the presence of these terrorists around the Dachigam forest area.
The IB and the Indian Army activated a satellite instrument in the area between 22 May and 22 July, under which personnel from the IB, Army and CRPF carried out foot patrols in the area to further corroborate the intelligence inputs received from human sources, he added.
'We received a successful confirmation from sensors on 22 July. Then, a joint team of CRPF, Jammu and Kashmir Police, led by jawans from 4 Para of the Indian Army, encircled the terrorists. The five human (intelligence) assets were also sent for operation, and the three terrorists were killed in the operation,' Shah told Lok Sabha.
Discussing the breakthroughs leading to the successful operation and identification of the terrorists, Shah said that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) brought in four eyewitnesses who identified the slain terrorists as the ones who carried out the Pahalgam attack.
He also stated that the forensic analysis of the evidence such as cartridges from the crime scene, was conducted and studied by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) in Chandigarh.
'When these terrorists were killed, weapons such as an M4 rifle and two AK-47s were recovered from them. The cartridges removed from Baisaran valley were also of these firearms, but we did not end here. These rifles were sent to Chandigarh CFSL through a special plane at midnight last night. These rifles and the cartridges were matched, and a successful matching confirmed that these weapons recovered from the slain terrorists were used in the Pahalgam terrorist attack,' Shah said.
'I have the ballistic report, which has been cross-checked by six experts who confirmed on a video call at 4.46 am today that the rifles recovered from the terrorists are the same used in Pahalgam,' Shah added.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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