The terrorists who orchestrated the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam on April 22 last year sat together near the Baisaran meadow the same day and had lunch before killing 26 people, 25 of whom were Indians.Tourists take a pony ride even as the way leading to Baisaran, right, looks deserted amid heightened security, on the first anniversary of the Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 men were gunned down by Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists last year, at Pahalgam in Anantnag district, Jammu and Kashmir, April 22, 2026. (PTI File)The revelation has been made in a charge sheet filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which also offers proof of Pakistan’s involvement in the attack. It also said that the terrorists indulged in celebratory firing after the deadly killings.According to the charge sheet, the attack was planned by the Resistance Front (TRF)/Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist Sajid Saiffullah Jatt, aka Langda, who shared the coordinates of the Baisaran meadow with the attackers. It also linked one of the terrorists involved to a terror strike on the Srinagar-Leh highway in October 2024.The chargesheet, filed on December 15 last year, also gives a blow-by-blow account of the run-up to the attack. HT has reviewed a copy of the charge sheet.Pakistan link establishedThe NIA charge sheet offers proof of Pakistan’s involvement in the Pahalgam attack that killed 25 tourists and one pony operator by tracing IP addresses of social media accounts and purchase details of the two phones retrieved from the attackers.The agency has named seven accused: Sajid Jatt, based in Pakistan’s Kasur; the three attackers –Faisal Jatt alias Suleman, Habeeb Tahir alias Jibran Bhai and Hamza Afghani (all three were killed in a gunfight with security forces on July 28, 2025); locals Bashir Ahmad Jothatd and Parvaiz Ahmad; and LeT/TRF in the charge sheet. They have been charged with murder and waging war against India, and relevant sections of the Arms Act and Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).According to the charge sheet, Sajid Jatt, believed to be at large in Pakistan, shared the coordinates of the meadow with the three attackers on April 15.According to the charge sheet, data retrieved from two phones recovered from the terrorists revealed “chats with Sajid Jatt giving directions to them ... and screenshots of the Alpine Quest app showing coordinates of locations near Baisaran Park”. Both phones, NIA said, were sold in Pakistan, based on data from the Indian arm of the phone manufacturer Xiaomi.“The hierarchical command structure, cross-border encrypted coordination, weapons logistics, and handler-driven tasking, as reflected in the charge sheet and corroborated by material evidence, leave no doubt that the attack was a Pakistan-sponsored terrorist operation, executed by LeT/TRF,” it adds.It further reveals that soon after the Pahalgam attack, at 16.32 hours, the Mastodon handle @KashmirFight, widely known as belonging to the TRF, posted a statement claiming responsibility for it. On April 25, when the United Nations Security Council issued a statement condemning the attack and further international pressure mounted on Pakistan, TRF launched a Telegram bot to automate the dissemination of updates and propaganda content, claiming the attribution of the attack to them was false, hasty, and part of an orchestrated campaign to malign the Kashmiri resistance.“Both the claim and denial came from social media handles based in Pakistan, and the same has been verified through technical analysis,” NIA said in the charge sheet. While the IP address of the social media account used to claim an attack was traced to Battarwala in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the denial came from an IP address traced to Rawalpindi. Some Facebook accounts and phone numbers used to share photos of the attack were also traced to Rawalpindi and Bhawalpur, Pakistan.The blow-by-blow accountOn April 21, the three arrived outside the dhok (hut) of Parvaiz Ahmad, roughly a kilometre from the meadow. Ahmad was arrested on June 22 last year along with Jothatd, a pony operator and his maternal uncle. It was Jothatd who first encountered the trio at around 4pm on April 21. They demanded a safe place and food in the name of Allah, according to the charge sheet.He recognised them for what they were and let them into the hut. Ahmad, his wife Tahira, and their infant child were present. The three asked that their weapons be hidden, and asked for food; while eating, they grilled the uncle and nephew about the upcoming Amarnath Yatra, camps of security forces nearby, and their movements. According to the charge sheet, they also spoke to Jatt. The terrorists sheltered in the hut for around five hours, and left at around 10pm, after getting Tahira to make them some rotis, and taking some spices, two checked blankets, tarpaulin and a cooking pot. Before leaving, they gave Ahmad ₹3,000.Lunch, then deadly attackAccording to the charge sheet, Jothatd and Ahmad saw the terrorists the next morning (April 22) when they reached Baisaran Park for work. The three were sitting outside the fence, but the uncle and nephew did not think to warn security forces, tourists, or even their fellow pony operators.Before entering the park, the terrorists sat under a tree and ate lunch, the NIA charge sheet said. After some time, they took out blankets from their bags and draped them over themselves. Two of the three terrorists then moved towards the point from where a rivulet entered Baisaran Park and sat there to observe the activities inside, the charge sheet added.Then they launched their attack at 2.23pm.Faisal Jatt carried the M4 carbine was wearing a GoPro camera around his head; two of them, Tahir and Afghani (AK-47s), moved straight towards the main entry gate of the park along the toilets, while Faisal Jatt moved towards the end of the zipline. According to the charge sheet, the three “systematically verified the religious identity of the victims before killing them”.“Victims who could not recite the kalma or who disclosed that they were not Muslims were shot at point-blank range in an execution-style manner. Throughout this sequence, the assailants told the victims ‘Modi ko bolo (Tell Modi)’, making it clear that the attack was intended to send a message to the elected Government of India, thereby evidencing the ideological intent behind the act,” it added.According to the charge sheet, coordinated attacks from the zipline in the south and from the main gate/dhabas axis in the north created “an enclosed kill zone in the central meadow”, the motive being to maximise civilian casualties. The three didn’t spare anyone.NIA writes that during their getaway, the terrorists encountered three civilians hiding behind trees outside the fence and shot them at close range. They also indulged in “celebratory” firing on their way out, the agency said.The NIA has cited the testimony of a protected witness (identity is kept secret in such cases) to say that this witness had, on April 21, seen Jothatd signalling three individuals near Ahmad’s dhok and later going inside.