India’s Home Minister Amit Shah has confirmed that three heavily armed fighters killed in a recent security operation in Indian-administered Kashmir were behind the April massacre of Hindu tourists in Pahalgam that escalated tensions with Pakistan earlier this year.
Speaking in Parliament on Tuesday, Shah said:
“Those who attacked in Baisaran were three terrorists, and all three have been killed.”
The killings occurred during a joint security operation by Indian military, paramilitary, and police forces near Srinagar on Monday, in the Dachigam forest region about 30km (18 miles) from the city.
According to Shah, the three suspects were all Pakistani nationals. Two of them were identified as members of the Pakistan-based armed group Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The April 22 attack in the popular hill resort area of Baisaran, near Pahalgam, left 26 people dead — most of them Hindu tourists. Survivors said the gunmen separated men from women and children and demanded some recite the Muslim shahada (declaration of faith). One of the victims was a Nepali national.
India blamed Pakistan for backing the attackers, a claim Islamabad denied. The incident triggered a brief but deadly escalation in May, resulting in a four-day cross-border conflict that claimed over 70 lives on both sides.
Investigators later confirmed the weapons recovered from the suspects in Monday’s raid matched the rifles used in the April killings. Shah said a high-level security meeting after the Pahalgam massacre had determined that “the attackers should not be allowed to flee to Pakistan.”
While an armed group called The Resistance Front (TRF) initially claimed responsibility for the Pahalgam attack, it later walked back its statement following public backlash. Earlier this month, the United States officially designated TRF as a “foreign terrorist organisation.”
Kashmir remains one of the world’s most volatile conflict zones. The Muslim-majority region has been split between India and Pakistan since 1947, and both nations claim it in full. The territory has been the flashpoint for two wars and multiple armed clashes.
Since 1989, rebel groups have fought against Indian rule, seeking either independence or a merger with Pakistan. India continues to accuse its rival of supporting the insurgency — a charge Pakistan denies, saying it only offers diplomatic backing for the Kashmiri people’s right to self-determination.
With input from Al Jazeera
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