New Delhi : Three terrorists were killed in an ongoing gunfight with security forces in the Akhal forest area of Jammu and Kashmir’s Kulgam district on Friday. The terrorists are affiliated with The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and are linked to the recent Pahalgam attack, officials said. The joint operation is being carried out by the Indian Army, CRPF, and Jammu and Kashmir Police following intelligence inputs about terrorist movements in the region.
Officials said the terrorists are believed to be hiding inside the Dachigam National Park near Srinagar. This gunfight comes days after Operation Mahadev, in which three Pakistani TRF terrorists were eliminated. Among them was top Lashkar commander Suleiman Shah, alias Musa Fauji—the key conspirator behind the Pahalgam attack. A large cache of arms was recovered from their hideout, including 17 grenades, one M4 carbine, and two AK-47 rifles.
According to intelligence inputs, five TRF terrorists were active in the region. With three neutralised in Operation Mahadev, and one killed today in Operation Akhal, one terrorist is now believed to be still at large. The encounter comes days after three of the terrorists who carried out the deadly Pahalgam attack on April 22 were killed by security forces near Srinagar under ‘Operation Mahadev’.
They gunned down Sulieman alias Asif, the alleged mastermind of the attack, along with two of his associates, in an encounter at Mulnar in the Harwan area near Dachigam National Park on July 28. The other terrorists killed in the action were identified as Jibran, who was involved in the Sonamarg Tunnel attack last year, and Hamza Afghani. 26 people, mostly tourists, were shot dead by terrorists at Baisaran meadows in Pahalgam, which prompted the armed forces to launch Operation Sindoor on May 7 against the terror infrastructure in Pakistan. On Thursday, two more terrorists were killed near the Line of Control (LoC) in Poonch.
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