Overview

• Indian Army para commandos carried out Operation Mahadev on July 28–29 in the Lidwas forest near Srinagar, eliminating Hashim Musa and two associates linked to the April 22 Pahalgam massacre.
• Home Minister Amit Shah told Lok Sabha that four to five rounds of identity checks culminated in a ballistic match of casings from the recovered AK-47s and M9 rifle to the Pahalgam attack.
• National Investigation Agency human assets who sheltered the militants authenticated their identities after the encounter, and forensic reports confirmed all three were Lashkar-e-Taiba operatives.
• Parliament received detailed briefings on the integration of human intelligence, signal intercepts and forensic ballistic analysis, and lawmakers endorsed further probes into the remaining terror cell network.
• India’s cross-border counterterror operations—from May’s retaliatory Operation Sindoor to Mahadev’s precision strike—underscore a tightened security posture along the Line of Control and sustained diplomatic outreach.