No declare of accountability however police name it ‘terror assault’ by rebels below intensifying navy crackdown in area.
Armed males opened fireplace on a gaggle of vacationers in Indian-administered Kashmir, with a few of them feared killed.
Police stated a number of vacationers acquired gunshot wounds within the “terror assault” on Tuesday whereas they have been visiting Baisaran meadow, some 5km (3 miles) from the disputed area’s resort city of Pahalgam.
“This assault is far bigger than something we’ve seen directed at civilians lately,” Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, the area’s high elected official, wrote on social media.
Native media reported at the least 20 folks have been killed however Abdullah stated he couldn’t present particulars as “the dying toll remains to be being ascertained”.
No group had claimed accountability for the assault, which police blamed on armed teams preventing in opposition to Indian rule, in keeping with The Related Press information company. Safety forces launched a hunt for the attackers whereas the wounded have been rushed to hospitals.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who’s on an official go to in Saudi Arabia, decried the “heinous act” in Pahalgam, pledging the attackers “might be dropped at justice”.
I strongly condemn the fear assault in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir. Condolences to those that have misplaced their family members. I pray that the injured recuperate on the earliest. All potential help is being offered to these affected.
These behind this heinous act might be introduced…
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 22, 2025
India’s inside minister, Amit Shah, is heading to Srinagar, the primary metropolis in Indian-controlled Kashmir, the place he stated he would overview the scenario.
“We’ll come down closely on the perpetrators with the harshest penalties,” Shah wrote in a put up on the X social media platform.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a key separatist chief in Kashmir, condemned what he described as a “cowardly assault on vacationers” in a put up on X. “Such violence is unacceptable and in opposition to the ethos of Kashmir which welcomes guests with love and heat. Condemn it strongly.”
Kashmir has been below an intensified navy crackdown since its semi-autonomous standing was revoked by the Indian authorities about six years in the past.
The assault follows violence earlier this month between safety forces and suspected rebels, which resulted in six deaths, together with 4 officers.
Assaults concentrating on vacationers in Kashmir have been uncommon lately, the final one courting again to June, when fighters attacked a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims, plunging it right into a deep gorge and killing at the least 9 folks.
Between India and Pakistan
Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan every administer a part of Kashmir, however each declare the territory in its entirety.
Many within the Muslim-majority, Indian-administered Kashmir help the rebels’ objective of uniting the territory with Pakistan or creating an impartial nation.
India insists the Kashmir rebellion is Pakistan-sponsored. Pakistan denies the cost, and lots of Kashmiris contemplate it a professional freedom battle.
The Indian authorities, led by the Bharatiya Janata Social gathering (BJP), revoked Kashmir’s particular standing in 2019, splitting the state into two federally administered territories – Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
The identical 12 months, a report by the Workplace of the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Human Rights accused India of human rights violations in Kashmir and known as for a fee of inquiry into the allegations.
