Tracked, Hunted In Less Than 3 Hours: A Detailed Timeline Of Op Mahadev

The security forces in Jammu and Kashmir avenged the Pahalgam attack today after hunting down the alleged mastermind, Suleiman Shah, alias Hashim Musa, in an encounter in Srinagar. Codenamed Operation Mahadev, three terrorists were killed in an encounter that was planned meticulously for several days before execution.

Suleiman Shah, a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist, is a former commando of the Pakistan Army's elite unit - Special Service Group (SSG). He later joined UN-designated terrorist Hafiz Saeed's LeT to carry out terror activities, sources told NDTV.

A Detailed Timeline

The group was tracked for the last few days, and at 2 am, the group activated the T82 ultraset communications device, a highly encrypted platform. This helped the forces to pick up the precise location of the terrorists in the Dachigam forests, security agency sources told NDTV.

At 8 am, a drone was launched to get the first visual of the terrorists and at 9:30 am, the Rashtriya Rifles (RR) - the Army's counter-insurgency force in Jammu and Kashmir. Along with RR troops, Para Special Forces commandos ascended on the Mahadev hill feature at 10 am. In just 30 minutes, the Para commandos did a visual identification of the terrorists.

At 11 am, shots were fired, and all three terrorists were hit in the first burst of fire. At 11:45 am, one terrorist, who was injured, attempted to escape but was eliminated. Forty-five minutes later, a cleansing operation was launched in a two-kilometre radius of the encounter site. At 12:45 pm, the terrorists' bodies were identified and photographed.

NDTV has also accessed a photo of the terrorist hideout that was targeted in Operation Mahadev. The visuals show multiple guns in the hideout located deep inside a forest area. According to sources, Carbine and AK-47 rifles, 17 rifle grenades and other arms and ammunition were recovered during the encounter. Security forces suspect that the terrorists were planning a big action in Jammu and Kashmir.

Operation Sindoor

On the intervening night of May 6 and 7, India carried out precision strikes around 1 am on terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir in response to the Pahalgam attack. India struck bases in Pakistan and PoK from where terrorist attacks were being planned and executed. Nine sites were targeted in the strikes under the codename 'Operation Sindoor' - an ode to the women who lost their husbands in the Pahalgam attack.

India's retaliatory strike was designed to dismantle key logistical, operational, and training infrastructure used by LeT, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), Hizbul Mujahideen, and other affiliated networks.

Each of the nine sites selected for the operation had a history of association with major terror plots and infiltration attempts directed at India.

One of the sites, Muridke, is the headquarters of the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is run by Hafiz Saeed, and Bahalwapur in Pakistan's Punjab province is the base of Jaish-e-Mohammad, an outfit run by Masood Azhar.