Among 4 terrorists behind Pahalgam attack, 2 from South Kashmir, may have ‘herded’ tourists to site: top official

“The police brass, including the Director General of Police, had camped in the Valley for a few days before the attack,” said a top official who did not wish to be named.

“They (security agencies, including the J&K Police) had intelligence. They were anticipating an attack. They thought it would be a hotel on the outskirts of Srinagar… because civilian killings have happened mostly in south Kashmir,” the official said. Hence, combing operations were undertaken around Dachigam, Nishat, and adjacent areas over 10-15 days preceding the Pahalgam attack.

These did not yield any breakthrough, the official said.

A source in the J&K Police, however, said the intelligence inputs were not specific, and came to light only after the incident, and one “must not read too much” into these.

The officials, who did not wish to be identified, said the security establishment is now certain there were four terrorists who carried out the Pahalgam attack and two of whom were from the Valley.

“We could verify this after the identities of the suspects were matched with details of Kashmiris travelling to Pakistan via the Attari border… The two from south Kashmir had crossed over to Pakistan, but there was no record of their re-entry. It is likely they returned to India from the Kathua side in Jammu,” said the official.

What’s also now known, the officials said, is that these two local terrorists “mingled” with the tourists before the attack commenced. In fact, they herded the tourists to a food court complex, where the other two terrorists, suspected to be from Pakistan, fired at them at close range, the officials said.

“Clearly, the terrorists were in and around Baisaran for 4-5 days, and this could not have happened without some element of local support from certain people in the area,” the official said.

Intelligence had also picked up signals of wireless chatter, suggesting these terrorists were in and around the place.

But the intelligence couldn’t gather the conversation of these terrorists given the communication sets being used by them.

There is concern in the government over the possibility of armed terrorists “moving around.”

Security forces have recovered advanced weaponry such as sniper rifles, M-series rifles, armour-piercing bullets from encounter locations — many suspected to be left-over ammunition of NATO troops in Afghanistan.

Officials underlined that the outpouring of anger and anguish from local Kashmiris after the killings was “spontaneous.” Political parties joined in only subsequently. “In fact, it was for the first time that a special session of the Assembly was called for expressing sympathy… and the Speaker sought out from the administration names of all 26 killed for obituary references,” the official said.

There have to be some learnings from the past, the officials said, referring to how the Union government had framed the return of normalcy to growing tourism and record tourist inflow.

“Ghulam Nabi Azad had used tourism as an index or marker of peace in the past… terrorists attacked a bus shortly after. In May 2006, four tourists were killed, and six were injured when a bus carrying tourists from Gujarat was attacked in Srinagar,” the official noted.

The officials also sought to dispel speculation in some quarters that the Baisaran meadow tourist spot was opened without any alert. “It was always open… there isn’t a single piece of paper in the records to suggest it was a regulated tourist spot,” the official said.