At least 26 tourists were killed in a militant attack on the town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir on Tuesday. Responsibility for the massacre at the popular tourist destination has been claimed on social media by a militant group called the Resistance Front (TRF), reportedly as a response to ‘Indian settlement’ in the region.
According to eyewitnesses, the militants verified the religion of their victims, before eliminating non-Muslims. The massacre was a throwback to the jihadist violence of the 1990s that saw the cleansing of Kashmir’s local Hindu population from the Muslim-majority region. The attack has overlapped with US vice president J.D. Vance’s trip to New Delhi, and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Saudi Arabia. The latter returned home ahead of schedule in the aftermath of what has become the most devastating militant manoeuvre in Kashmir since 2019.
Returning to a state of war and volatility is precisely what TRF has striven to orchestrate
The union territory of Jammu and Kashmir, a part of the Kashmir region claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan, had its special status and autonomy revoked by the Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in August 2019.
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