India’s Home Minister Amit Shah told lawmakers on Tuesday, July 29, that the security forces had killed the main perpetrators of the Kashmir attack in April, in an operation that comes amid opposition scrutiny over alleged intelligence failure in the incident.
During a discussion in the lower house of Parliament, Shah confirmed that three militants had been killed in an operation by the Indian armed forces in Kashmir on Monday. “In the Operation Mahadev, Suleiman alias Faizal, Afghan and Jibran, these three terrorists were killed,” Shah said.
“When the terrorists’ dead bodies reached Srinagar, they were identified as the three people who carried out the terror attack in Pahalgam,” he said, adding that there is sufficient evidence, including seized weapons, linking the men to the April 22 Kashmir attacks.
The development offers some relief to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government, which has faced opposition pressure over its response to the April attack, including how the militants gained access and evaded capture. The assault, which killed 26 civilians in Pahalgam in India-controlled Kashmir, led to military clashes with Pakistan in May, after New Delhi blamed its neighbor for the massacre. Islamabad has denied involvement.
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“We have voter IDs from Pakistan belonging to two of the three men killed,” Shah said on Tuesday. “Even the chocolates they were carrying were made in Pakistan.”
Modi in a 90-minute speech Tuesday evening said that India’s aim during the May strike was to destroy the epicenter of terrorist organizations in Pakistan, especially the ones connected to the April attack.
“If India suffers a terrorist attack, we will respond in our way, with our own conditions and in our own time,” said Modi. “Nuclear blackmail of any kind will not work anymore.”
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The opposition has also pressured the government to clarify if the US played a role in brokering a ceasefire between the South Asian neighbors following the clashes. President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed he used trade as leverage to secure a truce between the nuclear-armed rivals – a version New Delhi has consistently rejected, including in the Parliament this week.
“At no stage, in any conversation with the United States, was there any linkage with trade and what was going on,” S. Jaishankar told lawmakers on Monday.