At least 26 people were killed on Tuesday, April 22 in the Indian Kashmir, when armed men opened fire against a group of tourists, the most fatal attack against civilians in a quarter of a century in this region where an insurrection unleashed, announced local security services.
The attack was not claimed, but a rebellion broke out in 1989 in this territory mostly populated by Muslims. The insurgents demand independence or fusion with Pakistan, which controls a smaller part of the Kashmir and that, as India, affirms its entirety.
Nueva Delhi regularly accuses Islamabad of supporting these combatants, that the Pakistani authorities refute.
“I saw some men lying on the ground”
A tourist guide explained that he went to the place after hearing shots and had transported some wounded on horseback.
“I saw some men lying on the ground, they seemed dead,” said Waheed, who only gave his first name.
The doctors of an Hospital at Annant have received several injured, at least two of which were affected by balls, one of them in the neck.
“The fighters (…) left the forest near a small open meadow and began to shoot,” said a witness under the cover of anonymity. “They were clearly saving women and continued shooting men, sometimes a blow and several bullets, it was like a storm,” he said.
United States “firmly” next to India
The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, who shortened the trip he made to Saudi Arabia to return to his country, denounced an “odious act”, promising that their authors would be “taken before justice.”
“Its evil design will never succeed. Our determination to combat terrorism is unwavering and will only be strengthened,” he insisted on a press release.
The United States is “firmly next to India against terrorism,” he reacted on his social truth Donald Trump Social Network Donald Trump.
In this sense, the attack was the day after a meeting in New Delhi among the vice president of the United States, JD Vance, an official visit of four days to the Indian soil and Narendra Modi.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar also condemned “the hateful terrorist attack against tourists” in a message on social networks, adding that Israel “is united with India.”
A tourist destination
Indian Interior Minister Amit Shah announced by plane on the spot. “Those involved in this horror cowardly act will not be saved”, they will undergo the most severe punishments, “he wrote in a press release.
“The whole country is united against terrorism,” proclaimed Rahul Gandhi, the leader of the main opposition party in India, Congress, asking the Federal Government to “assume their responsibilities.”
India permanently displays around 500,000 soldiers in the part of the Kashmir, although the fight has decreased since the Narendra Government Modi revoked the limited autonomy of this territory in 2019.
The Indian authorities are now working to make this mountainous region a tourist destination, both for skiing during the winter months and to escape the suffocating heat of summer in the rest of India.
Around 3.5 million tourists visited Kashmir in 2024, mostly Indians, according to official figures. In 2023, India welcomed Srinagar a G20 meeting on tourism to illustrate the return to calm in this region after the mass repression that had followed the revocation of its limited autonomy.
Many tourist complexes are being developed, some of which are close to the highly militarized border that divides the back, between India and Pakistan.
The attack on the most mortal civilians dates back to March 2000 when around thirty Indians had been killed. She had acted on the eve of a visit by US President Bill Clinton.
Source: BFM TV
