India has suffered one of its worst terror attacks in recent years, after gunmen conducted mass killings in a picturesque and tourist-popular spot in the disputed and Indian-administered region of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday.
The site’s location in the mountainous Anantnag district is so remote that it took at least half a day for casualty figures to emerge, but authorities have since announced that 26 people were killed. Most the dead were travelers visiting a popular tourist destination in the Baisaran Valley, which is only accessible by foot or horseback. A huge military rescue operation and search for victims ensued.
Emerging eyewitness accounts indicated that men were separated from women and children by unknown armed militants which had descended on the area. The men, all civilians, were then asked their names before being executed at close range.
Reuters describes that “About 1,000 tourists and 300 local service providers were in the Baisaran Valley – known as mini Switzerland for its lush hilltop meadow, surrounded by dense pine forests – when three gunmen launched the Tuesday attack, the worst, opens new tab in India in nearly two decades.”
The initial reaction of the Indian government was to point the finger at Pakistan, but without naming specific culprits responsible. Indian leaders have for decades accused Pakistan of knowingly harboring terrorists along the disputed border.
There’s also been anger and confusion at what’s clearly a major security lapse, given is Jammu and Kashmir is heavily militarized and patrolled by the Indian Army. India also suspects that it was a Pakistan-backed massacre conducted by Islamic extremists due to the sectarian nature of the attack, given almost all the victims were Hindu:
General Hooda said the fact that the victims were civilians, and that witness accounts in Indian media suggested Hindus had been singled out by the militants, had only added to the pressure. A list of the victims circulating online, which was verified by local officials in Kashmir, showed that 25 of the 26 killed were Hindus.
