3 terrorists who carried out Pahalgam attack killed: Shah

Union home minister Amit Shah confirmed that the three terrorists killed in Operation Mahadev on Monday were those responsible for the Pahalgam terror attack, citing physical and forensic evidence.

- Neeraj Chauhan

In a 75-minute long speech in the Lok Sabha, Shah also targeted the Congress for being soft on terror and on Pakistan, going as far back as the 1940s to suggest that the problem originated from the party's acceptance of the partition of India.

“I want to inform the house that the security forces, the army, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), and Jammu and Kashmir police (J&K), as part of Operation Mahadev, on Monday, have eliminated the three terrorists-Suleiman Shah, [Hamza] Afghan, and Jibran [Bhai] -who brutally killed the innocent civilians in front of their families after asking about their religion in Pahalgam. Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, through Operation Sindoor, ensured that their masters were eliminated,” Shah said, referring to India’s response to the April 22 terror strike.

The terrorists’ identities, the home minister said on Tuesday, were confirmed by four individuals including Parvaiz Ahmad Jothar and Bashir Ahmad Jothar, who harboured them and gave them food a day before the attack. The duo was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on June 22.

Commenting on the Pakistani connection, Shah said the forces have found two Pakistani voter IDs from two terrorists and chocolates made in Pakistan. He added that "the weapons recovered from Dachigam on Monday, one M9 [M4] carbine and 2 AK 47 rifles, were flown to Chandigarh on Monday night in a special flight for examination at the Chandigarh Central Forensic Sciences Laboratory (CFSL). The shells found at the Pahalgam attack site were matched with the barrels of the rifles and experts confirmed that these rifles were used in Pahalgam attack." The weapons, Shah said in his speech, came from Pakistan.