NEW DELHI: Pakistan Army commando-turned-Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Mohammad Asif alias Hashim Moosa, a key plotter of the Pahalgam attack, was killed late Tuesday night in an operation in the Yousmarg area of central Kashmir’s Budgam district, the Indian Army said on Wednesday.
With his killing, all four terrorists behind the Pahalgam attack have now been eliminated. The gunmen, linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and its proxy front, The Resistance Front (TRF), killed 25 tourists and a local pony operator in the April 22 attack.
The attack triggered India’s military response, Operation Sindoor, launched by the armed forces on May 7 last year. The pre-dawn operation targeted nine terror sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
The operation to track Moosa, designated ‘OP KORAG’, was launched on the basis of specific intelligence inputs in the general area of Korag in Yousmarg, the Army’s Chinar Corps said. The Army, J&K Police and the CRPF were involved in the joint operation.
“Vigilant troops observed suspicious movement” on Tuesday and challenged the suspected terrorists, who opened fire, triggering an exchange of gunfire in which one terrorist was neutralised, the Chinar Corps said in an update on X.
During a search of the Palmaidan area early Wednesday, troops recovered the body of a Pakistan-based LeT terrorist, identified as Moosa, along with war-like stores, the Chinar Corps said in a subsequent update.
Sources in the defence and security establishment said personnel of 10 Para (Special Forces) and 53 Rashtriya Rifles were involved in the operation, along with the J&K Police’s Special Operations Group and the CRPF.
Moosa had been on the run since the Pahalgam attack. His associate Yasir was killed in the upper reaches of Yousmarg earlier this month, after which Moosa is believed to have moved deeper into the forests of the Pir Panjal range.
A former para-commando of Pakistan’s Special Service Group, Moosa was trained in ambushes and guerrilla warfare.
According to intelligence sources, the terrorist was also involved in a string of deadly strikes on security forces in J&K. In 2023 alone, he was linked to two separate ambushes that left seven Army soldiers dead.
The following year, he figured in the attack on an IAF convoy at Shastar in Poonch, which killed one IAF airman and the Botapathri ambush in Gulmarg, where two soldiers and two civilian porters were gunned down.
Though Moosa was not among the terrorists who carried out the Pahalgam massacre, his regular contact with Pakistan-based LeT handler Sajid Jatt put him high on the radar of intelligence agencies tracking the terror group's wider network in J&K.
The J&K Police had announced a Rs 20 lakh reward for information leading to Moosa’s arrest after the Pahalgam attack.
The other three terrorists identified by Union Home Minister Amit Shah as the Baisaran attackers were killed in Operation Mahadev in July last year. The joint operation was led by 4 Para Special Forces after intelligence agencies tracked the terrorists to the Dachigam area following a two-month hunt.
The three were identified as Suleman alias Faizal Jatt, Hamza Afghani and Jibran. Shah later said forensic examination had matched the three rifles recovered from them with cartridges recovered from the Pahalgam attack site.
The NIA has chargesheeted seven accused in the case, including LeT and its proxy TRF and named Pakistan-based handler Sajid Jatt.
