Srinagar, Aug 4:
Security agencies have gathered irrefutable evidence, including government-issued documents from Pakistan and biometric data, confirming that the three slain terrorists involved in the deadly Pahalgam attack were Pakistani nationals, officials said on Monday.
The terrorists, identified as senior operatives of the proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), were killed on July 28 in an encounter with security forces in the Dachigam forest on the outskirts of Srinagar during a counter-terror operation codenamed ‘Mahadev’. According to officials, the trio had been hiding in the Dachigam-Harwan forest belt since carrying out the April 22 attack in the Baisaran meadow of Pahalgam, which had claimed 26 lives.
The agencies said evidence collected confirms that no local Kashmiri was part of the terrorist group that carried out the attack.
Among the clinching evidence collected are biometric records from Pakistan’s National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA), voter identity slips issued by Pakistan’s Election Commission, and satellite phone data including call logs and GPS waypoints. This material, officials say, confirms beyond doubt that the terrorists were Pakistani nationals.
The post-encounter investigation, including ballistic matching of weapons to cartridges and the statements of two detained Kashmiri helpers, has corroborated the terrorists’ direct involvement in the Pahalgam massacre.
“For the first time, we have in hand official Pakistani documents that definitively establish the nationality of the Pahalgam attackers,” a senior official said.
Forensic, documentary, and testimonial evidence collected during and after ‘Operation Mahadev’ shows that all three attackers were Pakistani citizens and senior LeT operatives who had crossed over into Kashmir and were operating from the Dachigam-Harwan forest belt. The officials reiterated that no Kashmiri individual was part of the shooting squad.
The slain terrorists were identified as Suleman Shah alias “Faizal Jatt”, an A++ category terrorist, who acted as the mastermind and lead shooter; his associate Abu Hamza alias ‘Afghan’, an A-grade LeT commander and second gunman; and Yasir alias ‘Jibran’, also an A-grade LeT commander and third gunman.
Security forces recovered Pakistani government-issued documents, including two laminated voter identity slips issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan, from the pockets of Shah and Hamza. According to officials, the voter serial numbers correspond to electoral rolls in Lahore (NA-125) and Gujranwala (NA-79), respectively.
A crucial breakthrough came when a micro-SD card recovered from a damaged Huawei satellite phone contained NADRA-linked Smart-ID biometric data — including fingerprints, facial recognition templates, and family trees — of all three terrorists. This confirmed their Pakistani citizenship and their registered addresses in Changa Manga (Kasur district) and Koiyan village near Rawalakot in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
Additional items recovered from the terrorists’ rucksack included Pakistani-manufactured products such as wrappers of ‘CandyLand’ and ‘ChocoMax’ chocolates, both brands manufactured in Karachi. Officials said the lot numbers printed on the wrappers were traced to a May 2024 consignment shipped to Muzaffarabad in PoK.
On the forensic front, the 7.62×39 mm cartridge casings found at the Pahalgam attack site were matched with the three AK-103 rifles seized on July 28. The striation marks on the spent casings were found to be a 100 percent match. Additionally, mitochondrial DNA profiles extracted from blood on a torn shirt recovered in Pahalgam were identical to the DNA of the three slain terrorists.
Officials revealed that the trio had infiltrated across the Line of Control (LoC) via the Gurez sector in north Kashmir in May 2022. Their entry was confirmed by intelligence intercepts of their radio check-in from the Pakistani side.
On April 21, a day before the attack, they moved into a ‘dhok’ (seasonal hut) in Hill Park, located 2 km from Baisaran. According to the statements of two detained helpers — Parvaiz and Bashir Ahmad Jothar — they provided the terrorists with shelter and food the night before the attack. The terrorists then trekked to Baisaran the next morning to execute the assault.
GPS waypoints recovered from Suleman Shah’s Garmin device matched the exact firing positions identified by eyewitnesses. After carrying out the attack, the trio is believed to have escaped towards the Dachigam forest, where they remained hidden until they were killed in the encounter.
In the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack, Jammu and Kashmir Police had released sketches of three individuals — Hashim Musa, Ali Bhai alias “Talha”, and a local named Adil Hussain Thoker — on April 24. However, security agencies later clarified that these sketches were based on a photograph found on a mobile phone recovered from an unrelated encounter in December 2024 and did not pertain to the actual attackers.
A critical link to Pakistan’s involvement was established through intercepted communications. Officials said that Sajid Saifullah Jatt, LeT’s south Kashmir operations chief from Changa Manga, Lahore, acted as the overall handler. His voice matched samples previously intercepted and was also found on audio recovered from the seized satellite phone.
Further confirming Pakistan’s hand, officials said LeT’s Rawalakot commander, Rizwan Anees, visited the families of the slain terrorists on July 29 to organize ‘Ghaibana Namaz-e-Janaza’ (funeral prayers in absentia). Footage of the event is now part of the official Indian dossier on the Pahalgam attack.
