Attack on tourists in India’s Kashmir kills 26, injures 17, police say

At least 26 people were killed and 17 were injured when suspected militants opened fire at tourists in India's Jammu and Kashmir territory, police said on Wednesday, the worst such attack in the country in nearly two decades.

The attack took place on Tuesday in the popular destination of Pahalgam in the scenic  Himalayan federal territory that has seen a resurgence in mass tourism as insurgent violence waned in recent years.

It was the worst attack on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai shootings in which more than 160 people were killed.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi cut short his two-day visit to Saudi Arabia and returned to New Delhi on Wednesday morning. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman was also cutting short her visit to the US and Peru “to be with our people in this difficult and tragic time”, her ministry said.

The attack occurred in an off-the-road meadow and the dead included 25 Indians and one Nepalese national, police said.

A little-known militant group, the “Kashmir Resistance”, claimed responsibility for the attack in a social media message. It expressed discontent that more than 85,000 “outsiders” had been settled in the region, spurring a “demographic change”.

On Wednesday, more than a dozen local organisations called for a shutdown in the federal territory to protest against the attack on tourists, whose rising numbers have helped the local economy.

Many schools suspended classes for the day in protest.

Airlines were operating extra flights from Srinagar, the summer capital of the territory, as visitors were rushing out of the region, officials said.

Militant violence has afflicted the Himalayan region, claimed in full but ruled in part by  India and Pakistan, since an anti-Indian insurgency began in 1989. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, though violence has tapered off in recent years.

India revoked Kashmir's special status in 2019, splitting the state into two federally administered territories, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. The move allowed local authorities to issue domicile rights to outsiders, allowing them to get jobs and buy land in the territory.

That led to a deterioration of ties with Pakistan, which also claims the region. The dispute has spurred bitter animosity and military conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

Attacks targeting tourists in Kashmir have been rare. The last deadly incident took place in June 2024 when at least nine people were killed and 33 injured after a militant attack caused a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims to plunge into a deep gorge.

Reuters