Srinagar: A senior Jammu and Kashmir police officer on Tuesday said that out of 19 terrorists involved in deadly 2019 Pulwama terrorist attack, 15 have been either killed or arrested.

On this day in 2019 a local suicide bomber Adil Dar of Jaish-e-Mohammad rammed his explosive-laden car into CRPF bus at Lethpora Pulwama leaving 40 personnel of the force dead.

The attack was followed by Balakote air strikes. A day later Pakistan attempted a retaliation and it triggered a brief dogfight.

The Pulwama attack had brought India and Pakistan at the brink of war.

“Out of 19 terrorists and OGW involved in the Pulwama Attack, 8 have been killed, 7 arrested and 4 including Azhar Masood (JeM chief), Rauf Masood and (Ammar) Alvi who all are based in Pakistan are still alive," Additional Director General of Police, Vijay Kumar told reporters after paying tributes at Lethpora Pulwama to the CRPF men killed in 2019 bombing.

Kumar said over the last few years security forces have broken the back of Jaish in Kashmir.

He, however, said the Jaish was trying to recruit locals into the organisation and during the last six months they have increased recruitment.

“But we will not allow Jaish to flourish here,” he said.

ADGP Kumar said at present JeM has only 7-8 locals and 5-6 active Pakistanis including Mossa Solaimani who are active in Kulgam district of south Kashmir.

Kumar said a total of 37 local militants are presently active, out of them only two are old while rest were new recruits.

Inspector General Operations CRPF, MS Bhatia said the situation in Kashmir has shown remarkable improvement compared to the situation since the 2019 Pulwama bombing.

“Situation in Kashmir has improved vastly … (Anti militancy) Operations are continuing. Stone pelting has ended. Record number of tourists arrived in the valley. The terror eco system has finished. There are no shutdowns. Overall there has been a remarkable improvement in the situation. And security forces are proceeding to wipe out the terrorism from the valley,” he said.

(With UNI inputs)