Chocolate wrappers, Pakistani ID cards, satellite phone logs and more have linked Pahalgam attackers with Pakistan, sources say.
The evidences recovered by the Indian agencies between July 28-29 echo Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s speech in the Lok Sabha on July 29, which said that the identities of the terrorists have been traced to Pakistan.
“For the first time we have government-issued Pakistani documents in hand that nail the nationality of the Pahalgam attackers beyond doubt,” Shah had said.
Forensic, documentary and testimonial evidence collected during and after Operation Mahadev conclusively showed that all three attackers of the Pahalgam terror attack were Pakistani nationals and senior Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives who had been hiding in the Dachigam-Harwan forest belt since the day of the attack. No local Kashmiri was part of the shooting team.
The terrorists were identified as Suleman Shah (code named Faizal Jatt), an A++ commander who was the mastermind and lead shooter; Abu Hamza (code named Afghan), an A- grade commander, was the second gunman; and Yasi (code named Jibran), was an A- grade commander, was the third gunman and rear security, as per sources.
As a part of evidence to link these terrorists to Pakistan, the security forces recovered Pakistan Voter ID Cards.
Two laminated voter slips issued by the Election Commission of Pakistan were found in the pockets of Suleman Shah and Abu Hamza. The voter serial numbers (photographed and circulated to the FIA) correspond to electoral rolls in Lahore (NA-125) and Gujranwala (NA-79) respectively.
Further, they found National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA)-linked Smart-ID chips. A micro-SD recovered from a damaged sat-phone contained the NADRA biometric records (fingerprints, facial template, family tree) of all three men, confirming their Pakistani citizenship and addresses in Changa Manga (Kasur district) and Koiyan village near Rawalakot, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, as per sources.The security forces further found Pakistan-manufactured personal items.
Wrappers of Karachi-based chocolates were found in the same rucksack that carried spare magazines. Lot numbers printed on wrappers were traced to a May 2024 consignment shipped to Muzaffarabad, PoK.
The security forces further tracked the terrorists’ movement upto the attack.
The details revealed that they had crossed LoC near Gurez sector. Intelligence Bureau intercepted placed their first radio check-in from the Pakistani side.
On April 21, the terrorists moved into a seasonal hut (“dhok”) at Hill Park, 2 km from Baisaran. Two detained Kashmiri helpers, Parvaiz and Bashir Ahmad Jothar, confessed to sheltering them overnight and providing cooked food.
On the day of the attack, they trekked to Baisaran meadow, which was evident as the GPS waypoints recovered from Suleman Shah’s Garmin device match the exact firing positions reported by eyewitnesses.
They then carried out shootings and then escaped north-east toward Dachigam. There were shell casings at the scene that matched the three AK-103 rifles recovered on 28 July.
The 7.62×39 mm casings found in Baisaran were test-fired against the three AK-103 rifles seized on July 28, wherein the striation marks matched 100 per cent.
Futher, DNA evidence was also found. The Mitochondrial profiles extracted from blood on a torn shirt found at Pahalgam were identical to the DNA of the three bodies recovered in Dachigam.
Upon tracing digital footprint, it was found that a satellite phone (IMEI 86761204-XXXXXX) used by the trio had been pinging Inmarsat-4 F1 every night between April 22 and July 25; triangulation narrowed the search grid to 4 km² inside Harwan forest.
The command and control links in Pakistan were found to be Sajid Saifullah Jatt, LeT’s south-Kashmir operations chief (a resident of Changa Manga, Lahore), who was the overall handler; voice samples from the recovered sat-phone match his earlier intercepted calls. Rizwan Anees, LeT Rawalakot Chief, visited the families of the slain attackers on 29 July to organise ghibana namaz (funeral prayers without bodies) and was filmed by locals–footage now part of the Indian dossier.
On July 28 Indian security forces killed the three men who had carried out the April 22 Pahalgam massacre, in which 26 civilians–mostly Hindu tourists–were gunned down in Baisaran meadow, an official statement said.