New Delhi: Exactly two months after they were killed in an encounter with security in the Dachigam forest near Srinagar, former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and National Conference (NC) president Farooq Abdullah questioned the identities of the three Pakistani terrorists directly involved in the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam.
“There was a special debate on Operation Sindoor in Lok Sabha. Why are those four people eliminated only on that day? And you do not show faces of those people so we can verify if they are the same people,” Farooq said during a book launch session in New Delhi on Sunday.
Tracking of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorists – identified as Suleiman, Afghan and Gibran – had started immediately after the Pahalgam massacre. This tracking was based on the communication devices they carried and used from time-to-time to keep in touch with Pakistan.
On July 28, they were finally tracked to their hideout in the forest and eliminated by the Army’s Special Forces and Rashtriya Rifles personnel. The operation was named Op Mahadev.
A day later, Union home minister Amit Shah had announced the death of all three terrorists. Identity documents were seized from the spot and ballistics tests of the weapons found had confirmed they had shot the 26 people in Pahalgam, the minister said.
“In a joint Operation Mahadev, the Indian Army, CRPF and J&K Police have neutralised three terrorists who were involved in the Pahalgam terror attack,” Shah said in the Lok Sabha.
“All three terrorists – Suleman, Afghan and Jibran were killed in yesterday’s operation. The people who used to supply food to them were detained earlier. Once the bodies of these terrorists were brought to Srinagar, they were identified by those who were kept detained by our agencies.” the minister had added.
On Sunday, Farooq’s son and Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah accused the Centre of betraying both Ladakh and J-K by failing to fulfil its promises and deepening mistrust through delays in restoring statehood at the same event.
Abdullah said the government had failed to follow through on its own roadmap, first for Jammu and Kashmir and now for Ladakh, alleging that the latter was misled with “impossible” assurances.
“When you wanted them (Ladakh) to participate in Hill Council elections, you promised them the Sixth Schedule. Everyone knew that giving the Sixth Schedule to Ladakh was nearly impossible. A region that shares frontiers with China on one side and Pakistan on the other requires a sizeable defence presence, which the Sixth Schedule makes impossible. Yet, you made promises to get electoral participation,” Omar explained.
Since the neutralisation of the three terrorists, the Army has provided irrefutable evidence of their being Pakistanis. The symbolic last rites of one of them was also held in his village in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir.
