Kashmir: More than 20 deaths in attack on tourists

In the Indian Unruhergion Kashmir, alleged extremists shot on tourists and, according to police, killed at least 26 people. Most of the victims from various parts of India and two people from the area were among the victims, said police officers in the Jammu and Kashmir Union territory. In addition, several people were injured in the attack in a recreation area near the holiday destination Pahalgam. India’s Interior Minister Amit Shah spoke of a terrorist act.

Details did not give Shah, the newspaper “Greater Kashmir” reported that the group The Resistance Front (the resistance front) had known itself. This is a splinter group of the forbidden organization Lashkar-E-Taiba (Let), which is held responsible for a series of attacks in the Indian economic metropolis of Mumbai in November 2008. At that time, 175 people were killed, including 26 foreigners and nine of the extremists.

Security forces assumed a targeted attack on visitors. According to the newspaper “The Hindu”, two foreign guests from Italy and Israel were among the fatalities. This attack was much greater than the attacks that had been directed against civilians in the region in recent years, the head of government of the Union territory Jammu and Kashmir, Omar Abdullah, wrote on social media. “Those behind this malignant act are held accountable … they are not spared,” warned India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the X.

According to the reports, the attack in an area with mountain meadows occurred, where tourists had ridden among other things and wanted to enjoy spring. Eyewitnesses had reported that suddenly armed behind trees had emerged and had been fired by people. Police officers and soldiers then stopped the area. At the same time, a search for the attackers was initiated.

In the Indian controlled part of Kashmir, extremist groups fight the India sovereignty over the region. The Indian part was divided into two Union territories – Jammu and Kashmir as well as Ladakh – in 2019 and thus brought more under the control of the central government.

Most of the Kashmir region is divided between India and Pakistan. Both nuclear powers have already waged two wars about the rule over the entire Himalaya valley. A small part of Kashmir is also part of China.

The Federal Foreign Office in Berlin advises on its website to travel to Jammu and Kashmir. The Union territory has been committed in the past decades and also recently bombings that have demanded many fatalities, it says.