Top LeT Commander Killed in Bandipora Encounter

In a major breakthrough following the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam, security forces on Friday gunned down top Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) commander Altaf Lalli in a fierce encounter in Jammu and Kashmir’s Bandipora district.

The joint operation was launched early Friday morning by the Indian Army and Jammu and Kashmir Police, acting on specific intelligence inputs about terrorist presence in the area. Contact was quickly established, triggering a gunfight. During the exchange of fire, one of the terrorists sustained injuries, and two police personnel—part of a senior officer’s personal security team—were also wounded.

The elimination of Lalli marks the first major success in India’s ongoing operation to hunt down those responsible for the Pahalgam attack, which claimed 26 lives, mostly tourists. The Resistance Front, a proxy of LeT, is suspected to be behind the massacre in the scenic Baisaran Valley.

Meanwhile, Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi arrived in Srinagar to review the security situation and was briefed on the Bandipora operation. He is expected to conduct a comprehensive assessment of counter-terror efforts underway across the region.

As the security crackdown expands, action intensified on multiple fronts. In coordinated operations on Friday, the homes of two terrorists believed to be involved in the Pahalgam attack were demolished. The residence of Lashkar operative Adil Hussain Thoker in Bijbehara was destroyed using IEDs, while the house of Asif Sheikh in Tral was bulldozed by local authorities.

Thoker is believed to have played a key role in facilitating the movement and planning of Pakistani terrorists who carried out the Baisaran Valley massacre. The Anantnag Police have announced a ₹20 lakh reward for information on Thoker and two Pakistani nationals—Ali Bhai and Hashim Musa—identified as the main attackers. Sketches of all three have been released as the manhunt intensifies.

Survivors of the attack reported that the terrorists, dressed in military fatigues, emerged from dense pine forests and opened indiscriminate fire on tourists using AK-47s. Disturbingly, some witnesses stated that the attackers checked IDs to identify non-Muslim victims and executed them at point-blank range.

With the killing of Altaf Lalli and the destruction of key terrorist hideouts, security forces are pressing forward with an aggressive strategy to dismantle the terror network behind one of the deadliest attacks in the Valley in recent years.

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