From Rajouri to Pahalgam: Tracing the terror trail of Sulaiman Shah

A day after security forces killed Sulaiman Shah, the alleged Pahalgam attack mastermind, and two other terrorists in an intense gunfight on Srinagar's outskirts, Union Home Minister Amit Shah confirmed the development, saying he was responsible for the 22 April Pahalgam attack.

So who is Shah?

Sulaiman Shah, a LeT commander, is believed to have infiltrated into JK in 2023. For a year, he was active in the Jammu region; he shifted base from Jammu’s Pir Panjal range to Kashmir mid-last year.

In Jammu, he was reportedly involved in a number of attacks, including the attack in Poonch’s Dera Ki Gali in which four soldiers were killed.

He was said to have been involved in an attack on an Air Force convoy in the Jammu region.

Shah is believed to have given security forces the slip in December last year, when Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist Junaid Ahmed Bhat, who was behind the Ganderbal tunnel attack that left seven dead, was gunned down.

Shah, who was then accompanying Bhat, had escaped the operation site in the same forest region of Srinagar where today’s operation took place.

Other than his involvement in April’s Pahalgam attack, Shah, according to sources, had links to last year’s attack on a tunnel construction firm in Central Kashmir's Ganderbal, in which a local doctor and six employees of the firm were killed.

As many as 26 persons, largely tourists, were killed by terrorists at Baisaran meadows in Pahalgam, prompting the armed forces to launch Operation Sindoor against the terror infrastructure in Pakistan on May 7.