The security forces on Monday claimed to have killed the “main conspirator” of the February 14 Pulwama attack in an overnight gunfight, indicating a local imprint on the suicide strike that had appeared to nudge two nuclear-armed countries towards war.

Jaish-e-Mohammmed commander Mudasir Ahmad Khan, a resident of Midoora village in Tral, was among two militants killed in the operation, said Lt Gen. K.J.S. Dhillon, the army’s Valley chief and head of the Srinagar-based 15 Corps. The encounter had started on Sunday evening at Pinglish village in Pulwama.

Dhillon initially described Mudasir, 23, as the lone “main conspirator” but later said he and Pakistani militant Kamran, killed last month, were the main conspirators.

This is the first time the security forces have described Kamran, Jaish’s Valley chief, as one of the main conspirators. On February 19, the 15 Corps commander had said it was a matter of investigation whether Kamran had any role in the Pulwama attack, which killed 40 CRPF men.

Kamran is the only non-local among the four suspects the forces have named. The others are Mudasir, Adil Ahmad Dar (the suicide bomber) and Bijbehara resident Sajjad Bhat.

National Investigation Agency sources have claimed that Sajjad’s car was used in the Pulwama attack and that when the agency raided his home, it found that he had joined Jaish and gone underground.

Dhillon said that Mudasir had “helped and coordinated the whole” attack but added that it was a matter of investigation who had fabricated the bomb.

Dhillon, CRPF inspector-general (operations) Zulfiqar Hassan and state inspector-general of police S.P. Pani addressed a joint news conference on Monday to announce Mudasir’s death. Pani said the development was a “significant dent” for Jaish.

Zulfiqar said the operation was “definitely very significant… doubly significant for the CRPF because Mudasir was involved” in the December 31, 2017, suicide attack on the paramilitary force’s Lethpora camp in Pulwama too.

The 2017 attack had killed five personnel. Two of the three attackers were Kashmiris, including a 16-year-old Class X boy, Fardeen Khanday.

The forces recently killed Kulgam youth Raqib Ahmad and released a video in which he speaks of plans to carry out a suicide bombing.

All this suggests an increasing role by Kashmiri youths in suicide attacks, till recently the exclusive province of Pakistani militants.

Sources said Mudasir was an electrician with a graduate degree who had joined the militants more than a year ago.

A source said he had been recruited by Jaish commander Noor Mohammad Tantary alias Noor Trali, also a resident of Tral who was killed in December 2017.

Trali, 47, was the Valley’s oldest militant, only four-and-a-half feet tall but said to have been a master ideologue who was instrumental to Jaish’s revival in the Valley over the past few years.

Dhillon said the forces had eliminated 18 militants after the Pulwama attack, 14 of whom were from Jaish. He said the operations were focusing on Jaish to avert any repeat of the Pulwama strike.