Three terrorists who were involved in the Pahalgam attack on 22 April have been gunned down by the Indian security forces in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), Home Minister Amit Shah told a parliamentary discussion on Operation Sindoor on Tuesday.
"Three terrorists — Suleiman Shah, a top Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)* commander, along with Jibran and Hamza Afghani — were successfully eliminated," Shah said, sharing details of Operation Mahadev on Monday evening in the General Area of Lidwas in Kashmir.
Shah said that all three of them had been classified as 'Category A' terrorists.
"Suleiman was an ‘A’ category terrorist, deeply involved in the Pahalgam and Gagangir terror attacks. Our intelligence agencies have substantial evidence of his role. Both Hamza Afghani and Jibran were also classified as ‘A’ grade terrorists, posing a serious threat to national security," the Indian Home Minister told the Lok Sabha.
The Home Minister said that Indian authorities had "proof" that the three terrorists who had been killed were Pakistani nationals.
"We have voter ID numbers of the two of them... The chocolates recovered from them are made in Pakistan," Shah said.
Further, he told the Parliament that the rifles recovered from the terrorists, including an M9 and two AK-47s, were the same that had been used in the Pahalgam attack.
"After these terrorists were killed, their rifles were seized. One was an M9, the other two were AK-47s. We got these rifles flown to Chandigarh on a special plane. We generated empty bullet shells by firing these rifles and then matched them with those found in Pahalgam. It was then confirmed that these three rifles were used to murder innocent civilians," Shah revealed.
Shah extended his congratulations to the Indian Army, the paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Jammu and Kashmir Police for the successful operation.
Twenty-five Indian citizens and one Nepalese national were killed in the Pahalgam terror attack, which has been claimed by The Resistance Front (TRF), a proxy for LeT. In response, Indian tri-services carried out strikes at nine terrorist camps and infrastructure as part of Operation Sindoor on 7 May, leading to a brief conflict which ended with a ceasefire initiated by Pakistan on 10 May.
*UN-designated terror group