India‘s Home Minister Amit Shah has announced that three suspected rebels killed in a joint military operation in Indian-administered Kashmir were responsible for the deadly attack on tourists in Pahalgam in April. The minister made the comments in a speech to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Parliament, on Tuesday.
According to Shah, the three suspects were Pakistani nationals, and two of them were members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based armed group. Shah stated that Indian security agencies have detailed evidence of their involvement in the attack, which killed 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists.
The operation, which took place on Monday in the mountains of Dachigam, about 30km from Srinagar, resulted in the deaths of the three suspects. Shah said that a security meeting was held immediately after the attack, and it was decided that the attackers should not be “allowed to leave the country and return to Pakistan.”
Investigators relied on witness accounts and forensic evidence to establish that the rifles found on the men were the same ones used in the April attack. “It was confirmed that these three rifles were involved in the killing of our innocent civilians,” Shah said.
The attack had sparked an intense military conflict between India and Pakistan, with both sides accusing each other of backing the violence. The conflict resulted in the deaths of over 70 people on both sides.
The United States has designated The Resistance Front (TRF), a group that initially claimed responsibility for the attack, as a “foreign terrorist organisation.” TRF later retracted its claim, amid mounting public criticism over the killings.
The Kashmir conflict has been ongoing since 1989, with Kashmiri rebels fighting against Indian rule, demanding independence or the region’s merger with Pakistan. India accuses Pakistan of backing the violence, while Islamabad says it only provides diplomatic support to the Kashmiris’ struggle for self-determination.