Pahalgam probe finds terrorists used Pakistan-shipped phones financed via bank flagged in 9/11 investigations

Investigation into last year’s Pahalgam terror attack has revealed that one of the two cellphones used by terrorists was traced to a consignment imported into Pakistan in 2021. Reportedly, the shipment was financed through Karachi-based Faysal Bank, which has been previously named in terror-related investigations for alleged links with funds of proscribed terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Kuwait-based Lajnat-al-Dawa, which is known to be associated with Al-Qaeda.

According to an Indian Express report, citing officials familiar with the investigation, both Xiaomi phones that were imported in 2021 and 2023 remained inactive for years until shortly before the deadly April 22 attack in Jammu and Kashmir that killed 26 civilians. The report added that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Jammu and Kashmir Police learned that both phones, a RedMi 9T (orange) imported and a RedMi Note 12 (black), were imported by a Karachi-based company, Tech Sirat Pvt Ltd and were delivered in Pakistan on January 1, 2021. According to shipping details, the logistics company listed for the consignment was “Faysal Bank” while the delivery address was recorded as “St/02, Faysal House, Main Branch, Shahrah-e-Faisal, Karachi, Pakistan”.

The phones were recovered from the terrorists, Faisal Jatt alias, Suleiman Shah, Habeeb Tahir alias Jibran, and Hamza Afghani, who opened fire at the tourists in Pahalgam’s Baisaran Valley. All three were killed in an encounter at Mulnar Mahadev, in Dachigam Forest, Jammu and Kashmir, on July 28, 2025.

“The consignment must have been received by Tech Sirat, but documents show delivery to the bank since it has financed it. The phone used by the Pahalgam attackers appears to have been smuggled out of this consignment and found its way to the LeT. Notably, since the import in 2021, the phone was never switched on until the Pahalgam attack. It appears that it was whisked away from the consignment for precisely the purpose of being handed over to a terrorist,” an official told the Indian Express.

Where there is no evidence to suggest Faysal Bank had direct links to the Pagalgam attack, the bank has been under scrutiny over earlier terror investigations. In 2007, the New York Times report cited lawsuits following the 9/11 attacks that alleged that accounts linked to banned organisations, including Lashkar-e-Taiba and Lajnat-al-Dawa, were maintaining deposits at the bank.

The second phone, a Redmi Note 12, was imported by Lahore-based Air Link Communications Ltd in 2023 and similarly remained unused until the attack preparations began.

While investigators could not recover communication records because the terrorists relied on long-range radio technology instead of cellular networks, they extracted photographs and maps from the devices. Among the recovered material was an image of a tent set up on March 30, 2025, near Baisaran Meadows, indicating that the attackers had conducted extensive reconnaissance and preparations weeks before the assault that killed 26 people.