Army officer Kanwal Jeet Singh Dhillon was speaking during a joint briefing in Srinagar.

"Anyone who has picked up the gun in Kashmir will be eliminated, unless they surrender," the army said today, appealing mothers in Kashmir Valley to persuade their sons who have picked up guns to get back to mainstream. The remarks came after three Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists were killed in an operation in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama yesterday.

The army said that the entire leadership of Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed has been eliminated from the Kashmir Valley.

"I request all the mothers of Kashmir to please request their sons who have joined terrorism to surrender and get back to the mainstream. Anyone who has picked up the gun in Kashmir will be eliminated, unless he surrenders," Lieutenant General Kanwal Jeet Singh Dhillon, Corps Commander of Chinar Corps, appealed during a joint briefing by the army, the CRPF and the Jammu and Kashmir police. The officer said the government's surrender policy is will help the young men return to mainstream. "Otherwise, anyone who has picked up the gun will be killed and eliminated," he added.

The army said the three terrorists had been killed in "less than 100 hours" after the Pulwama terror attack, in which over 40 soldiers of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) laid down their lives in a suicide attack in Pulwama last week. The February 14 attack is the worst terror attack on security forces in Jammu and Kashmir.

Monday's encounter in Pulwama claimed the lives of four soldiers and a police constable.

The three Jaish terrorists who were killed included Kamran, believed to be a conspirator in the Pulwama terror attack. Kamran was a key aide of Jaish-e-Mohammed's Pakistan-based chief Masood Azhar.