Kashmir Man Arrested For Providing Logistical Support To Pahalgam Terrorists
In a significant breakthrough, the Jammu and Kashmir Police on Wednesday arrested a man who is suspected of having helped the terrorists in the April 22 Pahalgam massacre that claimed 26 lives in the Baisaran Valley along Pahalgam.
The arrested man, Mohammad Kataria, has been held directly responsible for the attack after forensic analysis showed the weapons recovered in the course of Operation Mahadev in July to be identical to those used in the April attack. Kataria, officials say, was tasked with organizing logistics and providing local support to the attackers and was thus a key facilitator of the attack. He has been remanded into judicial custody and will be tried in court.
Operation Mahadev: The Trail of Terrorists
The arrest comes after months of investigations following the launch of Operation Mahadev by security agencies in May, having received intelligence that militants were taking cover in the Dachigam forests near Srinagar. Soldiers employed sophisticated surveillance, including drones and intercepted encrypted messages sent using Chinese-made communication equipment, to follow up on the group.
On 28 July, after continued surveillance, Rashtriya Rifles and Special Forces units carried out a decisive action. By the evening, they had neutralized three terrorists, Suleiman Shah alias Hashim Musa, who is suspected to be the mastermind of the Pahalgam attack.
Following forensic tests that were carried out in Chandigarh, it was confirmed that rifles seized during the operation had actually been fired during the April killings. Previously, Union Home Minister Amit Shah told Parliament that ballistic tests had confirmed that spent cartridges from Pahalgam matched the guns recovered during the counter-terror operation.
A Strategic Breakthrough
The officials greeted Kataria's arrest as a major triumph in the broader campaign against terrorist organizations in the Union Territory. They noted that the breakthrough underscores the collective value of intelligence collection, forensic science, and collaborative counter-terror operations, which continue to decimate militant infrastructures functioning in Jammu and Kashmir.
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