According to the authorities, at least 26 people were killed in an attack in Kashmir. Many of them were tourists. India's Minister of the Interior speaks of terror.
In the Indian Unruhergion Kashmir, alleged extremists shot on tourists and, according to police, killed at least 26 people. Most of the victims from various parts of India and two people from the area were among the victims, said police officers in the Jammu and Kashmir Union territory. In addition, several people were injured in the attack in a recreation area near the holiday destination Pahalgam.
India's Interior Minister Amit Shah spoke of a terrorist act. However, he did not give details. The newspaper Greater Kashmir reported that the group The Resistance Front (the resistance front) had known itself. This is a splinter group of the forbidden organization Lashkar-E-Taiba (Let), which is held responsible for a series of attacks in the Indian economic metropolis of Mumbai in November 2008. At that time, 175 people were killed, including 26 foreigners and nine of the extremists.
Security forces assume a targeted attack on visitors. According to the newspaper The Hindu, two foreign guests from Italy and Israel were among the fatalities.
Police and military stopped area
This attack was much greater than the attacks that had been directed against civilians in the region in recent years, the head of government of the Union territory Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, wrote on social media. “Those behind this malignant act are held accountable … they are not spared,” wrote India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the platform X.
According to the reports, the attack occurred in an area with mountain meadows, where tourists had ridden, among other things, on horses and wanted to enjoy spring. Eyewitnesses had reported that suddenly armed behind trees had emerged and had been fired by people. In contrast, there are testimonies, according to which the attackers specifically asked whether their victims were Hindus and then opened the fire. Police officers and soldiers then stopped the area. At the same time, a search for the attackers was initiated.
India and Pakistan claim the area
In the attack against Hindus, observers see a targeted provocation towards the Indian government. Both India and Pakistan claim the area completely and have already led two wars to control the mountain region. The stove was created when the former colonial power of Great Britain left India and the country was shared.
In the Indian controlled part of Kashmir, extremist groups of India fight sovereignty over the region. The Indian part was divided into two Union territories – Jammu and Kashmir as well as Ladakh – in 2019 and thus brought more under the control of the central government. Most of the Kashmir region is divided between India and Pakistan, a small part of Kashmir is part of China.
India has stationed half a million soldiers in the region and has performed the rebel groups there since 1989. Since then, tens of thousands of civilians, soldiers and rebels have been killed. In 2019, the Indian government raised the partial autonomy of the area.
The Federal Foreign Office in Berlin advises on its website to travel to Jammu and Kashmir. The Union territory has been committed in the past decades and also recently bombings that have demanded many fatalities, it says. The last major attack on visitors in Kashmir took place in June 2024 when a bus with Hindu pilgrims fell into a deep gorge after armed it attacked it. At least nine people were killed and 33 more injured.
With information from Franziska Amler, ARD Neu-Delhi
