Explainer: How the slaughter of 26 people has ramped up tensions between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan

YESTERDAY 26 PEOPLE were killed in India when a gunman opened fire on tourists, marking the region’s deadliest attack on civilians in years. 

The attack was in an area called Kashmir, that is both a tourist hotspot and contested region. 

Here’s what you need to know.

Where is Kashmir?

Kashmir is a region in the northwest of India and administered by both India and Pakistan. It borders China to the north and northeast, Afghanistan to the north, Pakistan to the west, and two Indian states to the south. 

The Himalayan region is also a popular tourist destination, known as “Little Switzerland”. With its mountain meadows, it’s usually packed with visitors skiing in the winter and escaping the summer heat from the lowland plains of India.

Around 3.5 million tourists visited Kashmir in 2024, the majority domestic visitors.

Kashmir has also been an area of dispute between India and Pakistan since the partition of the Indian subcontinent in 1947.

What is the context for the region?

Rebels in the Muslim-majority region have waged an insurgency since 1989, seeking independence or a merger with Pakistan. Many Muslim Kashmiris support the rebels’ goal of uniting the territory, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

India describes militancy in Kashmir as Pakistan-backed terrorism. Pakistan denies the charge, and many Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle.

India has an estimated 500,000 soldiers permanently deployed in the territory, but violence had dropped since New Delhi revoked Kashmir’s limited autonomy in 2019. 

The worst attack in recent years was in Pulwama in February 2019 when insurgents rammed a car packed with explosives into a police convoy, killing 40 and wounding at least 35 others.

Tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed in the conflict.

India has used heavy-handed tactics to maintain its control over the region, which include giving the armed forces widespread powers to arrest, torture and summarily execute suspects, human rights groups say.

What exactly happened there yesterday?

In the popular tourist site of Pahalgam, a gunman opened fire and killed 26 men, wounding 17 others. All those killed were listed as residents from India except one man from Nepal.

A tour guide told AFP he had carried some of the wounded away on horseback.

Waheed, who gave only one name, said he saw several men lying dead on the ground, while a witness who requested anonymity said the attackers were “clearly sparing women”.

Omar Abdullah, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister, said the attack had been “much larger than anything we’ve seen directed at civilians” in recent years.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

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“Those responsible and behind such an act will very soon hear our response, loud and clear,” Rajnath Singh, Minister of Defence of India, said in a speech in New Delhi today. 

“We won’t just reach those people who carried out the attack. We will also reach out to those who planned this from behind the scenes on our land.”

Singh did not identify those he believes are responsible for the killings, but said that “India’s government will take every step that may be necessary and appropriate”.

In a separate incident in Kashmir at Baramulla on Wednesday, the army killed two people after a “heavy exchange of fire”, saying the gunmen were part of an “infiltration bid” crossing the contested frontier from Pakistan.

What is the response?

There was an exodus of tourists following the attack, with fears that the attack could “paralyse” business in Kashmir, according to hotel manager Abdul Salam.

India’s Director General of Civil Aviation Faiz Ahmed Kidwai also issued a letter which called on airlines to “take swift action to increase the number of flights…facilitating the evacuation of tourists”.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pledged that those responsible for the “heinous act” will “be brought to justice.”

Modi is set to hold an emergency cabinet meeting with top security chiefs later today.

“Their evil agenda will never succeed,” Modi said in a statement shortly after the attack. “Our resolve to fight terrorism is unshakable and it will get even stronger.”

How did other countries respond?

US President Donald Trump called Modi to offer “full support to India to bring to justice the perpetrators of this heinous attack”.

China, which neighbours the troubled region, offered its “sincere sympathies” to the families of those killed.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry on Wednesday offered its “condolences to the near ones of the deceased”.

Why does this attack matter?

The attack posed a “very serious risk of a new crisis between India and Pakistan, and probably the most serious risk of a crisis since the brief military conflict that happened in 2019,”  said analyst Michael Kugelman.

Nuclear-armed arch-rivals India and Pakistan have long accused each other of backing forces to destabilise the other, and New Delhi says Islamabad backs the gunmen behind the insurgency.

Islamabad denies the allegation, saying it only supports Kashmir’s struggle for self-determination.

AFP journalists near the site of the Pahalgam attack reported a heavy deployment of security forces. Pahalgam is about 90 kilometres (55 miles) by road from the city of Srinagar.

This attack could lead to further violence and instability in the region. 

Includes reporting by Press Association and - © AFP 2024

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