Gunmen opened fire on tourists in the mountain resort town of Pahalgam in India, killing at least 20 people and wounding several others, in one of the deadliest attacks in the restive Himalayan region in recent years.
Reuters reports this, citing three sources in the countryʼs law enforcement agencies.
One source put the death toll at 20, a second at 24, and a third at 26. All three spoke on condition of anonymity. The nationalities of the victims are currently unknown.
"The death toll is still being ascertained, so I donʼt want to go into those details. Needless to say, this attack is much larger than anything we have seen against civilians in recent years," Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said in a post on X.
The attack took place in Pahalgam, a popular tourist town in the Himalayan region, where summer tourism has increased in recent years due to a decrease in violence by Islamist militants.
Some people managed to escape — they ran for about four kilometers without stopping. According to the Indian Express, citing a police officer, two or three militants could have been involved in the attack.
The regionʼs lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha said the army and police had been dispatched to the scene.
A little-known militant group called the Kashmir Resistance claimed responsibility for the attack. The group wrote on social media that they were unhappy with the settlement of more than 85 000 “outsiders” in the region, which they said had caused “demographic changes”.
"So violence will be directed against those who try to settle illegally," the report says.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that those responsible for this horrific attack will be brought to justice and that there will be no mercy.
"Their evil agenda will never succeed. Our resolve to fight terrorism is unwavering and will only grow stronger," the post said.
What preceded
The Himalayan region, which is claimed in full by both India and Pakistan but only partially controlled by both countries, has been wracked by violence since 1989 due to an armed insurgency against Indian rule. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in that time, although the level of violence has declined in recent years.
In 2019, India revoked the special status of Kashmir, splitting it into two centrally administered territories, Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh. The changes also allowed people from other regions to be granted residency, allowing them to work and buy land in the area. The government of Jammu and Kashmir, where Pahalgam is located, told the state parliament this month that nearly 84,000 non-resident Indian citizens had been granted residency in the region in the past two years.
This move by India further strained relations with Pakistan, which also claims the region as its territory. The dispute has led to deep hostility and armed conflict between the two nuclear-armed states.
Attacks on tourists in Jammu and Kashmir are rare. The last such incident occurred in June 2024, when a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims fell into a gorge after being attacked by militants, killing at least nine people and injuring 33 others.
Indian security officials note that some of the largest militant attacks during the active phase of the insurgency occurred during visits by high-ranking officials from abroad — likely to draw world attention to the situation in Kashmir.
The attack on Tuesday, April 22, came the day after US Vice President J.D. Vance began a four-day, mostly private visit to India.
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