Three terrorists involved in the Pahalgam terror attack were killed on Monday in a security operation named Operation Mahadev, Union Home Minister Amit Shah told Parliament on Tuesday.

During a discussion on Operation Sindoor in the Lok Sabha, Shah said that the Indian Army, along with the Jammu and Kashmir Police and the Central Reserve Police Force, had “neutralised the three terrorists who were involved in the attack”.

On Monday, the Army said that three suspected militants had been killed in a gunfight with security forces in the Lidwas meadows of Srinagar’s Dara area.

The terror attack at Baisaran near Pahalgam town in Jammu and Kashmir on April 22 left 26 persons dead and 16 injured. The terrorists targeted tourists after asking their names to ascertain their religion, the police said. All but three of those killed were Hindu.

On Tuesday, Shah claimed that the men, identified as Suleiman Shah, Afghan and Jibran, were members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group.

The Union home minister said that the men were identified as having been involved in the Pahalgam attack by those who had provided them shelter.

“The people who used to supply food to them [terrorists] were detained earlier,” the Union home minister said on Tuesday. “Once the bodies of these terrorists were brought to Srinagar, they were identified by those who were kept detained by our agencies.”

In June, the National Investigation Agency had arrested two men, Parvaiz Ahmad Jothar and Bashir Ahmad Jothar, for allegedly harbouring the terrorists who carried out the attack.

In response to the Pahalgam attack, India on May 7 launched military strikes – codenamed Operation Sindoor – on what New Delhi claimed were terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The Pakistan Army retaliated to Indian strikes by repeatedly shelling Indian villages along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. At least 22 Indian civilians and eight defence personnel were killed in the shelling.

India and Pakistan on May 10 reached an “understanding” to halt firing following the conflict.