Srinagar/New Delhi: Security forces have released conclusive evidence linking the three terrorists killed in Operation Mahadev—carried out in response to the deadly Pahalgam terror attack—to Pakistan, officials said on Sunday. The revelations include the recovery of Pakistani voter ID cards, chocolates manufactured in Pakistan, and a Huawei satellite phone used for cross-border communication.
The three terrorists—Hamza Afghani, Jibran, and Suleman Shah alias Hashim Musa—were killed in an anti-terror operation last week in the dense forests of Jammu and Kashmir. Officials have now disclosed details of the materials seized from the encounter site, which they say serve as irrefutable proof that the attackers were trained and infiltrated from across the border.
“The voter identity cards clearly mention residential details in Pakistan. These were not fake or forged local IDs. In addition, chocolates with manufacturing labels of Pakistani brands and a Huawei satellite phone were recovered,” a senior official involved in the investigation told India Today.
The weapons found with the terrorists—an M4 rifle and AK-47—were also forensically matched to bullet casings recovered from the site of the April 22 attack in Pahalgam, in which 26 civilians, mostly Hindu tourists, were killed. The attack had triggered nationwide outrage and a sharp escalation in India-Pakistan tensions.
Security officials said the group had been under surveillance for weeks after intelligence agencies intercepted satellite phone signals. “We were monitoring the Huawei satellite phone, which pinged intermittently from remote locations. This gave us a movement pattern that narrowed their hideout,” an intelligence officer said.
Sources also revealed that individuals previously arrested for sheltering the terrorists had positively identified the bodies after the encounter. “They confirmed these were the same individuals they hosted post-attack. This corroborates field intelligence and ties all threads together,” a senior police officer said.
The latest disclosures come amid political debate around the attackers’ origins. Union Home Minister Amit Shah had earlier named the three terrorists in Parliament and accused former Home Minister P. Chidambaram of giving Pakistan a clean chit by raising doubts over their nationality.
“Evidence now speaks for itself,” an official from the Ministry of Home Affairs said. “We’ve always maintained that this was a Pakistan-sponsored act of terror, and the material recovered leaves no room for ambiguity.”
Operation Mahadev was launched as a retaliatory mission in response to the Pahalgam attack. With this evidence now public, the security establishment sees it as a successful closure—both tactically and diplomatically.
