On Tuesday, Indian Home Minister Amit Shah asserted that Indian security forces recovered Pakistani voter identity cards and locally manufactured chocolates from three men killed in a gun battle in Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK). According to Shah, these individuals were involved in the Pahalgam attack.
“I want to tell… the entire nation that these were the three terrorists who killed our citizens… and now all three have been killed,” Shah informed parliament during a discussion on the India-Pakistan conflict.
New Delhi claimed the attackers were Pakistani nationals—an allegation denied by Islamabad. The assailants had opened fire in a valley popular with tourists in IIOJK’s picturesque, mountainous region of Pahalgam, before escaping into the surrounding pine forests. This attack prompted New Delhi to launch an assault on Pakistan, leading to four days of intense fighting between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
India experienced a significant setback in May after Islamabad initiated Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos in retaliation for India’s Operation Sindoor. During the 87-hour conflict, Pakistan reportedly shot down six Indian fighter jets, including three Rafale aircraft, and dozens of drones. The conflict between the two nuclear-armed nations concluded on May 10 with a ceasefire agreement brokered by the United States.
Addressing the parliament, the Indian home minister stated that India possessed “a lot of proof” that the deceased “terrorists” were Pakistanis, citing the recovery of Pakistani voter identity cards for two of them and chocolates made in Pakistan by security forces. He added that forensic tests confirmed the rifles found with them were used in the April attack. The Indian army reported that the three individuals were killed in a fierce gun battle in an occupied Kashmir forest on Monday.
A day earlier, India reportedly launched a new covert military operation titled “Operation Mahadev” to conceal its recent failures in the conflict with Pakistan. Sources told Geo News that this plan includes reviving fake encounter tactics and framing illegally detained Pakistanis as cross-border terrorists.
According to security sources, the Indian military has begun staging fake operations under the banner of Operation Mahadev following the failure of its earlier campaign, Operation Sindoor. These fabricated encounters are allegedly part of a broader scheme to suppress the burgeoning freedom movement in IIOJK and to restore the political credibility of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. The sources indicated that Indian authorities intend to use Pakistani detainees already held in Indian jails in these staged operations. Under this plan, these detainees would be killed and subsequently declared as terrorists who had crossed the border.
