‘Act of war’: What happened in Kashmir attack that killed 26 tourists? | Conflict News

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir — Suspected rebels killed at least 26 tourists on Tuesday in the picturesque tourist resort of Pahalgam in the deadliest such attack in a quarter century in Indian-administered Kashmir, raising fears of an escalation in India-Pakistan tensions.

The attack in Kashmir’s southern district of Anantnag prompted anger across India. It came amid the peak tourist season as hundreds of thousands of tourists are holidaying in the region, which has been racked by a three-decade armed rebellion.

Soon after the attack, teams of police and paramilitary troops rushed to the spot to evacuate the wounded tourists and launch a manhunt for the attackers. Indian Home Minister Amit Shah, along with the country’s top security brass, rushed to Kashmir, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi cut short a visit to Saudi Arabia to return to New Delhi, where he held a meeting on Wednesday morning to craft India’s response.

The attack also unfolded as India is hosting US Vice President JD Vance, who arrived on Monday and is scheduled to leave on Thursday.

Here’s what we know about the attack, the victims, the attackers, the backdrop for the killings, what this means for Kashmir and the region, and how India might react.

What happened?

Pahalgam, which means “valley of shepherds” in Kashmiri, is one of the most visited tourist destinations in the region, located about 50km [31 miles] from the main city of Srinagar.

On Tuesday, witnesses told Al Jazeera that the area was bustling with tourists. At about 2:45pm, a group of armed men in camouflage clothes emerged from a nearby forest, an official said, requesting anonymity to discuss details that security forces have not formally made public.

The attackers “opened indiscriminate fire at Baisaran meadow, a scenic uphill area accessible only by foot or pony rides,” the official said. Many tourists were caught off guard as the sudden volley of bullets rang out.

Simran Chandani, a tourist from Nagpur in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, said that she was not sure she would survive the attack.

“We were preparing to leave after having tea and maggi (a popular pre-packaged, ready-to-eat noodle snack)” when the attack started, she said, describing Pahalgam as “mini-Switzerland”.

Then it all changed.  “I saw a rush of people coming down, we thought the balloon had burst, people were pushing each other, who told us an attack had happened,” she recalled, adding that mostly men were fired upon.

She joined the others in trying to escape. “I was taking the name of God and running,” Chandani said.

How many people were killed, and what do we know about them?

At least 26 people have been killed in the attack, and more than a dozen others were injured.

The tourists killed were almost all civilians, and an Indian Navy officer from the northern state of Haryana on his honeymoon.

A 68-year-old former banker from Pandurangapuram in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, who was visiting the region with his wife, was also killed. The deceased also included a realtor from the southern state of Karnataka, an accountant from the eastern state of Odisha, a cement dealer from Uttar Pradesh in the north, and a Gulf-returnee from the southern state of Kerala.

One foreign national, from Nepal, was among those killed.

Who claimed responsibility for the attack?

A statement issued in the name of the Resistance Front (TRF), which is believed to be an offshoot of Pakistani-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, claimed responsibility for the attack.

The statement linked the attacks to the thousands of residency permits being handed over to Indian citizens, permitting them to live and work in Kashmir. However, Al Jazeera could not independently confirm the statement’s authenticity.

The Indian government had stripped Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status in 2019, asserting more federal control and splitting the former state into two union territories. The move escalated political tensions in the region and paved the way for the Indian government to issue residence permits to non-Kashmiris, which had previously been banned.

Indian officials told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity that they suspected that four attackers took part in the killings – two of them from Pakistan, and two from Indian-administered Kashmir.

Have tourists been attacked in the past?

Even amid Kashmir’s unrest, direct attacks on tourists have been rare.

In 1995, six foreign tourists were abducted in Pahalgam by the armed group Al-Faran. One was killed, another escaped, and the remaining four were never found.

In 2000, 32 people, including 21 Hindu pilgrims, were killed at Nunwan in Pahalgam.

A year later, 13 people, including 11 pilgrims and two locals, were killed near Sheshnag lake in the same area. In 2017, eight pilgrims were killed in a shooting incident in the Anantnag district. In June last year, eight Hindu pilgrims were killed in the southern part of Jammu’s Kathua when their bus was attacked and fell into a gorge after the driver lost control.

But Tuesday’s attack is likely to be the deadliest attack on tourists at least since the 2000 attack in Nunwan.

Overall, Kashmir has not seen death in an attack on this scale since the bombing outside Jammu and Kashmir’s state legislature in October 2001, in which 35 people were killed.

The nature and scale of the attack stunned survivors and local politicians.

“We went to Pahalgam, and I was sitting on the chair in the meadow when I heard three shots, which created chaos,” said Vinu Bai, a 65-year-old tourist from the western state of Gujarat who was being treated with a bullet injury in the district hospital in Anantnag.“Everyone started running. The bullet in the chaos hit my arm.”

“We thought Kashmir was peaceful, we did not know this would happen.”

Iltija Mufti, a young politician associated with a local opposition group, said Pahalgam was usually patrolled heavily by Indian security forces. “For an attack like this to happen in a place like Baisaran,” she said, “is extremely shocking”.

“There’s no place for such an attack to take place in our society.”

How has the Indian government responded?

India’s leaders were meeting on Wednesday to prepare the country’s response.

Modi, who was earlier supposed to meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for a state dinner in Jeddah, cut short his trip and rushed back to India.

“I strongly condemn the terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir. Condolences to those who have lost their loved ones. I pray that the injured recover at the earliest. All possible assistance is being provided to those affected,” PM Modi said in a tweet. “Those behind this heinous act will be brought to justice … they will not be spared!”

Home Minister Amit Shah also rushed to Srinagar and met top security officials in the region. Rahul Gandhi, the top opposition leader from the Indian National Congress, slammed the government, urging it to move beyond the “hollow claims” of normalcy in Kashmir since the revocation of the special status in 2019.

“The whole country is united against terrorism,” Gandhi said. “Instead of making hollow claims of the situation being normal in Jammu and Kashmir, the government should now take accountability and take concrete steps so that such barbaric incidents do not happen in the future and innocent Indians do not lose their lives like this.”

Will India retaliate against Pakistan?

Experts said that the government’s response could include some form of retaliation against Pakistan for the brutal attack.

“This is an act of war. That’s how we are seeing it. It has come just days after that speech by Pakistan’s army chief,” Tara Kartha, director at the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), a New Delhi-based think tank. Kartha, who was formerly an official at India’s National Security Council Secretariat, was referring to last week’s address by Pakistani Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir, where he reiterated his support for the two-nation theory that led to India’s partition in 1947, and affirmed “difference from Hindus”.

Kartha said that the actions in Pahalgam match the tone of Munir’s “invective-loaded” address on April 16. “Only if Pakistan condemns the attack in the strongest terms and promises action against terrorists in the next 48 hours will a serious crisis be averted.”

Pakistan responded in the early hours of Wednesday.

“We are concerned at the loss of tourists’ lives in an attack in Anantnag district of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. We extend our condolences to the near ones of the deceased and wish the injured a speedy recovery,” the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. India and Pakistan both claim all of Kashmir, and each controls a part of it.

While that statement is unlikely to calm passions in India, where the government will face pressure to act tough against Pakistan, some experts cautioned against an impulsive reaction.

India’s relative stability compared with its “highly volatile neighbour” should inform its response, said Saba Naqvi, a veteran political commentator based in New Delhi.

“As for India, most people here think the BJP regime will simply drop bombs there and everything will be avenged,” she said, referring to Modi’s Hindu majoritarian Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). “But it is not as simple as that.”

What does the attack mean for Kashmir?

Kashmiri politicians and civil society have condemned the attack, arguing that such actions hurt residents more than anyone else.

“This is a terrorist act. I don’t think I can define it as anything else. Whoever has done it only wants to harm Kashmiris, our economy, and a sense of political stability that had returned to place in the past couple of months,” Waheed ur Rehman Para, a Kashmiri legislator from the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), told Al Jazeera.

Tourism is an important component of the local economy, contributing nearly 7 percent to its gross domestic product (GDP). A rush of visitors to Kashmir also serves the political messaging of Modi’s BJP that it has succeeded in bringing peace and calm to the region.

Yet, even before the Pahalgam attack, things were far from normal in the region. Since 2019, the Indian government has cracked down on political activists and civilians alike, arresting thousands of people under draconian laws that allow it to keep them under detention for lengthy periods without a trial.

Last year in October, Kashmir voted to choose its first elected head after nearly a decade.

Omar Abdullah, a popular provincial politician who campaigned on the promise of reinstating the lost autonomy, clinched a landslide victory in these polls.  But his rule has been severely restricted by the new laws of the union territory, with many powers now held by a federally handpicked lieutenant governor.

Still, the Pahalgam attack has brought many hoteliers and tour operators to the defence of tourists and against those behind the killings.

“This is not acceptable at any cost. What is most difficult, more than anything else, for us at this hour is the heavy human loss this has imposed. Tourism is not the priority at the moment,” said Abdul Wahid Malik, a hotelier based in Pahalgam, and former president of the local hoteliers’ guild.

A landslide in Ramban village, a gateway connecting the mountainous Kashmir region with the plains of Jammu, has disrupted traffic in and out of the landlocked valley, pushing airfares higher and making it difficult for fear-stricken tourists to leave the region, following Tuesday’s attack.

After learning that a tourist family was stuck, Malik arranged four rooms for them at his hotel. “We are duty-bound to ensure their safety,” he said. “The attack has devastated us.”

Tourism and business operators in Kashmir called for a shutdown on Wednesday. Other residents also said they were shocked by the incident.

“Kashmir is known for being warm and hospitable,” said Nadiya Farooq, 31, a resident of Srinagar.

“We are devastated by the loss of lives. We want peace and an end to bloodshed. We are grieving.”