Three terrorists, including one linked to the April 22 Pahalgam attack, were on Monday gunned down in an intense shootout with security forces in the Harwan forests near Dachigam in Jammu and Kashmir, according to reports.

Suleman, a Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist, was confirmed as one of the attackers and the mastermind behind the Pahalgam strike. Security officials said he was killed during the operation, code-named Operation Mahadev, along with two other terrorists, Abu Hamza and Yasir.

"Three terrorists have been neutralised in an intense firefight. Operation Continues," the Srinagar-based Chinar Corps of the Army posted on X. Defence officials said the gun battle started at 11 am.

All the terrorists were reported to be high-value targets and foreign nationals. The joint operation was carried out by the Army, CRPF and Jammu and Kashmir Police, as reported by NDTV.

Security forces had launched a large-scale operation to track those behind the Pahalgam attack that killed 26 people, and intelligence inputs over the past month indicated that the terrorists might have moved towards the Dachigam area, around 20 km from Srinagar’s centre.

It was not immediately clear if the three slain terrorists were directly involved in the April 22 attack.

Acting on an intelligence input, security forces carried out an anti-militancy operation in the Mulnar area of Harwan on Monday morning. Two rounds of gunfire were heard from a distance as the forces searched the area.

Reinforcements were rushed, and combing operations intensified, which resulted in the killing of the three terrorists.