New Delhi
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Three extremists in charge of the fatal attacks on Indian-controlled Kashmir tourists have been killed earlier this year, a senior Indian official told lawmakers on Tuesday.
During the April genocide, gunmen struck the spots of Indian-controlled Kashmir’s scenic mountains, killing 26 people, mostly Indian tourists. The murders sparked rage throughout India, causing a brief but dangerous conflict between India and Pakistan.
The militants were killed in a joint operation called Operation Mahadev by Indian Army, Central Reserve Police, Jammu and Kashmir police officers, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah told Congress.
“The people responsible for killing our citizens in Baisalan Valley are these three terrorists, and all three have been killed,” Shah said.
He said all three people killed by lawmakers were Pakistani citizens.
CNN has contacted the Pakistani government for a response.
India has accused Pakistan of the attacks that Islamabad denied. New Delhi launched airstrikes on its neighbors in the following weeks, sparking a tattish military response claiming to live on both sides of the border.
Shah said India’s intelligence agency received information in May about the trio’s conditional location in Dachigam National Park, on the outskirts of Srinagar city.
The Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is under great pressure to find and punish people behind the tourist genocide.
The trio convened a special discussion on Operation Sindoah, the formal name given to India’s retaliation measures against Islamabad after the attack.
The contested region of Kashmir has been the flashpoint for relations between India and Pakistan since the two countries gained independence from the UK in 1947.
Both countries, emerging from the bloody division of Britain’s India (Hindu majority India and Muslim majority Pakistan), have fully advocated Kashmir despite only controlling a portion of it. A few months after independence, they fought the beginning of three wars over territory.
The conflict that followed the April genocide was India, with Pakistan at its worst in decades, with both sides deeper into the other’s territory.
After a four-day battle, the ceasefire between India and Pakistan was first announced by US President Donald Trump, who claimed that Washington had helped secure the deal. India denied that we were involved in the consultation.
