2 satellite phone signals 17 days apart, help from nomads, and a peak named Mahadev – inside the operation that killed 3 Pahalgam terrorists

According to highly placed sources, the men had also used the device on July 11 in the Baisaran area. Since then, multiple teams of the Army and police had been looking for them, even during the night, which forced them to keep changing their locations.

On Saturday, when security forces and police detected the satellite phone signal from the Mahadev Peak area, they immediately launched what security agencies would later call Op Mahadev. The signal was tracked to Dachigam, which has the nearest human habitation nearly 30 km away at Chak Dara.

While Baisaran in Anantnag district, where the April 22 attack took place, and Dachigam forests in Srinagar are nearly 120 km away by road, their distance through the forest is around 40-50 km, with Aru Wildlife Sanctuary falling in between.

Sources said that after the presence of the three men was ascertained in the general area, heat signature drones were flown to narrow it down.

In a meticulously planned and swift operation, security forces and police, based on information provided by local nomads about the region, cordoned off the area and took on the terrorists, who were caught unawares, resting under a makeshift tent around 11.30 am Monday, sources said.

In the ensuing fierce gunfight, the Army and police managed to kill all three men — top Lashkar-e-Taiba commander Suleiman Shah, who had undergone training at LeT’s Muridkee terror headquarters, Hamza Afghani (identified as Afghan by Shah in Lok Sabha) and Jibran, all Pakistani nationals. Jibran was also involved in last year’s terror attack at Z-Morh tunnel, officials said.

In the end, officials said, it was their messaging equipment, used to communicate with their handlers in Pakistan, that was their undoing. “This equipment uses radio frequency to latch on to a mobile phone and then communicate across the border without using the phone’s network. This helps it escape surveillance. However, there is equipment to catch such frequencies, which also provides an estimation of the area it is emerging from. But it is a general area, not the exact location,” an officer involved in the operation said.

The three-month hunt

In the wake of the terror attack, as joint efforts began between security forces and intelligence agencies to track down the perpetrators, large-scale operations by the Army’s Special Forces and the Rashtriya Rifles were launched on and along the multiple ridgelines that emanated from Pahalgam.

This was assisted by technical intelligence comprising satellite imagery and inputs from surveillance carried out by drones. Additionally, electronic surveillance was used to detect signatures of Thuraya satellite phones and other radio intercepts gathered when the terrorists were communicating, allowing for their tracking over the last three months.

Whenever an electronic intercept from the radio sets or satellite phones was received, it was plotted on a map for further assessment of nearby areas. This was done regularly, and accordingly, the troops were inducted to carry out cordon and search operations in those areas, marked by rugged terrains, steep slopes and thick forests with caves, thus making for suitable hideouts.

The modus operandi of the terrorists was to emerge from their hideouts, cover some distance before making short calls, and retreat.

Locals and other sources also gave security agencies constant intelligence on the likely movement patterns and possible hiding spots of terrorists in thick forests along the ridges.

Each location that was identified was painstakingly searched by the security forces before moving on to the next. The security forces ensured that the terrorists were continuously on the move and denied them long resting periods.

In the vicinity of the Mahadev Peak, at a height of 13,000 ft, there are a large number of caves and dense undergrowth from where increased electronic signatures had been detected for the last few weeks.

In the early hours of Monday, some movement was detected in the dense rocky areas ahead of the peak. The area was cordoned off, and additional troops moved towards it to cut off any escape routes. One of the terrorists was likely killed in the first round of firing itself, while the other two retaliated with heavy firing, before they were killed, officials said.

The identification

Fully aware that the terrorists are likely high-value targets, authorities took their time to confirm their identities. For this, they checked with family members of those killed in Pahalgam’s Baisaran Valley on April 22, as well as two jailed locals — Parvaiz Ahmad Jothar and Bashir Ahmad Jothar — who allegedly harboured the terrorists at their seasonal dhok at Hill Park area.

Shah also detailed how their identities were confirmed. “The NIA had kept those who helped these terrorists in custody and when the bodies of the terrorists came to Srinagar, four people confirmed that these three conducted the terror attack in Pahalgam.”

“We were in no rush,” Shah said, adding that they also matched the cartridges found with the three killed, with those recovered from the Pahalgam terror site.