CNN —
Armed men killed at least 26 people and wounded one more dozen in the disputed Himalaya region of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, an unusual attack against tourists in an area ravaged for decades of insurgency and opposition to the government of India.
The devastating Massacre aimed tourists in a popular tourist destination in Pahalgam, in the mountainous district of Anantnag, and constitutes the worst attack against civilians in the region in years. It is believed that the majority of the 26 murdered people were travelers.
Among the victims was a Nepali citizen and another person of Indian origin who worked in the Middle East, according to CNN VK Birdi, Inspector General of Cashmira Police.
He added that the attack took place in a part of the Baisaran Valley, accessible only on foot or horse. The attack was developed in a meadow, with nearby mountainous ridges, which extended several kilometers without roads, he explained. The survivors described the horror that was lived during the attack and the bloody scene that armed men created.
A witness told the news agency press Trust of India (PTI) that unidentified armed men opened fire against tourists at a short distance.
“My husband was shot in the head and seven other people were also injured in the attack,” said a survivor, according to PTI.
Another survivor, Asavari Jagdale, told PTI that armed men entered the store where their family was hidden. The attackers accused the family – a process of the city of Pune, to the west of India – to support Prime minister Narendra Modi, before shooting the male relatives of Jagdale, including her father, according to her.
Local resident Abdul Waheed told CNN that he got on his poni to help transport the injured to areas where they could be transferred to the hospital and recruited other members of his local association of ponies to help. For those who were too injured, they used improvised cuisines to take them down the valley.
“I saw people crying, shouting, simply lying after the attack. There were children, women, men, from around the world,” he said. “It was a huge trauma. I didn’t sleep all night.”
A little known militant group, the Resistance Front, was attributed responsibility for the attack on social networks, expressing their discontent with the “outsiders” that had settled in the region and had caused a “demographic change.” He did not provide evidence, and CNN cannot verify his statement independently.
Birdi told CNN that the authorities knew that the group had attributed responsibility, but that they continued to investigate the matter. Until Wednesday, the authorities were carrying out medical exams to the victims and organizing airplanes to transport the bodies and their families.
The picturesque region of the Himalaya, administered in part by India and Pakistan, although still played by both parties, is usually plagued by violence and has a strong presence of security, but attacks on tourists are rare.
“It is a kind of implicit contract between the local population and the militant groups that the tourism sector will not be undermined, since almost everyone in Kashmir, especially in the valley, depends directly or indirectly on the tourism industry,” said Ajai Sahni, an expert in anti -terrorism and author.
This Tuesday night, outraged residents had met in the region to protest. Videos of the protest show a crowd by chanting slogans, holding candles and posters that said: “High to terrorism.” Other posters demanded the resignation of the Minister of Interior of India, Amit Shah. Tourists also rushed to leave the region, and the airlines were rescheduing flights.
“Those who are behind this atrocious act will be taken before justice … their life will not be forgiven! His evil agenda will never succeed,” wrote Indian leader Modi in X.
After the attack, Modi interrupted his two -day visit to Saudi Arabia after meeting with the Saudi heir prince, Mohammed Bin Salman.
The body of the Indian army, responsible for military operations in the attack area, declared that a search operation was being carried out to take the attackers before justice. Shah, Minister of the Interior, arrived in the region this Tuesday and presided over a high -level security meeting, according to his office.
India has been accusing Pakistan for a while to house Islamist militant groups that attack Kashmir, something that Islamabad denies. In the past, militant attacks have caused a strong escalation of tensions between the two neighbors with nuclear weapons, who have rival claims on the Himalayas region. India made air attacks inside Pakistan in 2019 after an insurgent attack against Indian soldiers.
A spokesman from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan expressed his condolences to the victims and added: “We are concerned about the loss of tourist lives in an attack in the Anantnag district, in Jammu and Kashmir, territory illegally occupied by India.”
-The attack occurred a day after the United States vice president, JD Vance, arrived in India to visit his family. This Tuesday, he expressed his condolences for X, writing: “In recent days, we have captivated the beauty of this country and its people. We accompany them in the duel for this horrible attack.”
The president of the United States, Donald Trump, also condemned the attack, expressing his solidarity with India against terrorism and calling Modi to convey his condolences, according to the Indian authorities.
Other leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Iran, France, Italy and United Arab Emirates also expressed their conviction.
Claimed in its entirety by India and Pakistan, the mountainous cashmere region has been the epicenter of a territorial struggle, often violent, between the two countries for more than 70 years. The region is one of the most dangerous conflicting points in the world, and a de facto border, called the control line, divides the areas under the jurisdiction of New Delhi and Islamabad.
Throughout the last two decades, several national militant groups, which demand the independence of Kashmir or the incorporation of the area to Pakistan, have faced the Indian security forces, with tens of thousands of dead in violence.
The violence shot in 2018, and the Indian government assumed greater control of the region in 2019, in the middle of a strong military presence and a communications blackout that lasted months.
Although the Indian government has said that militancy has since been reduced, the attacks continue to ravage the region.
This Tuesday, a regional spokesman for Modi Bharatiya Janata (BJP) accused Pakistan of promoting terrorism in the region and described the attack as “the result of Pakistan’s frustration.”
“Pakistan and his allies are unable to digest the return of peace and tourism to Jammu and Kashmira. They want to stop growth and plunge the region again in fear. But we will not allow that to happen,” said Altof Thakur.
Pakistan’s defense minister Khawaja Asif denied any link with the attack.
“We have nothing to do with this and we do not support terrorism anywhere,” he said in a television interview with a Pakistani media.
The Kashmirs fear the growing antiCachemir and antimuser feeling that is brewing on social networks and in statements in national news channels.
“Every back is mired in pain and shock; terrorism has no religion; these bleak images will remain engraved in our collective memory, but we are being defamed,” Nasir Khuehami, of the Association of students of Jammu and Cashmira, from Srinagar, the largest city of Jammu and Cashmira, told CNN on Wednesday.
“The Kashmirs have always suffered violence and we know what it is to lose a father or a child; we sympathize with these families,” he said, adding that he has been receiving messages from puppy students from all over the country who fear being attacked.
Sahni, an expert in anti -terrorism, said that the attack would probably feed both sides: it would be celebrated as a triumph by Islamist extremists and feed fear and Islamophobia among the Hindu population, majority of India, thus deepening the already tense tensions between both religions.
“Since this has been an attack specifically against Hindu tourists, once again he will feed the common narrative of both parties,” he added.
Pahalgam is on an important pilgrimage route, known as Amarnath Yatra, which is celebrated every year and has been subject to previous attacks.
Thousands of tourists go to Kashmiro during their high season, which goes from March to August.
The last great attack against tourists in the region took place in June. At least nine people died and another 33 were injured when a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims rushed through a ravine, after alleged militants fired against the vehicle.
This news was updated with additional information.
