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India has claimed to have killed three Pakistani nationals who it says were responsible for a deadly attack in Kashmir in April that brought New Delhi and Islamabad to the brink of war.
Amit Shah, India’s powerful home minister and a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, told parliament on Tuesday that security forces had killed “all three terrorists involved in the Pahalgam attack” in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Monday, following a months-long operation.
All three were members of the Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, Shah said, without providing further evidence.
On April 22, at least three militants opened fire in a meadow popular with tourists in Pahalgam, killing 26 people, most of them Hindus. It was the country’s deadliest terror attack on civilians since the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
New Delhi blamed Islamabad, which denied any role in the incident and called for a “neutral” investigation, and launched its deepest military strikes on Pakistan for almost five decades.
Over the next four days, the two nuclear-armed neighbours exchanged air strikes, missiles and drone attacks that threatened to spiral into a full-blown war, raising concerns around the world.
India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire in May, which US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for prompting. But New Delhi insists that the ceasefire came after Pakistan’s military reached out to its Indian counterpart to request a mutual end to the strikes.
New Delhi has also been rankled by Trump’s offer to mediate between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, a contested territory that both sides claim and control parts of. India wants any negotiations over the territory to be bilateral, while Pakistan has welcomed international mediation in the dispute.
India’s defence minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday that New Delhi had halted its operation in May because it had accomplished all of its “political and military objectives”, dismissing any suggestion that it had been pushed to do so.
But Modi’s government has been under pressure from the opposition in recent weeks to demonstrate tangible gains from its investigation into the attack.
Shah said on Tuesday that Modi had “ensured that the masterminds of the Pahalgam attack were eliminated” in its attacks on Pakistan. He added that “three Pakistani terrorists” were also “eliminated” on Monday.
Shah said the identities of the suspects were confirmed by four witnesses who had previously assisted them. Their rifles were also matched to shells recovered from Pahalgam through ballistic tests, he said.
Local police had initially identified two Pakistani nationals and one Indian as suspects in the attack.
Shah said Indian forces had also identified Pakistani voter numbers for two of the suspects. He added that “Pakistani-made chocolates” were also recovered from them.
Pakistan’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Shah’s statements.
India and Kashmir have fought multiple wars over Muslim-majority Kashmir since 1947. India has long accused Pakistan of supporting separatist groups in the territory. Pakistan denies backing terrorism and says it has provided only moral and diplomatic support for the cause of self-determination in Kashmir.
