India vows strong response after militant attack in Kashmir kills 26 tourists
Indian security forces launched a large-scale operation on Wednesday, April 23, to track down militants suspected of killing 26 men at a tourist destination in Kashmir. The incident marks the deadliest attack on civilians in the country in nearly two decades, with New Delhi vowing a strong response.
At least 17 people were also injured in the shooting that took place on Tuesday in the Baisaran valley in the Pahalgam area of the scenic, Himalayan federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir. The dead included 25 Indians and one Nepalese national, police said, News.Az reports citing foreign media.
It was the worst attack on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai shootings, and shattered the relative calm in Kashmir, where tourism has boomed as an anti-India insurgency has waned in recent years.
The attack is seen as a setback to what Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have projected as a major achievement in revoking the semi-autonomous status Jammu and Kashmir enjoyed and bringing peace and development to the long-troubled Muslim-majority region.
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 United States and Peru "to be with our people in this difficult and tragic time", her ministry said.
Modi held a meeting with the national security adviser, the foreign minister and other senior officials at the airport and a special security cabinet meeting was called for 1230pm GMT (8.30pm Singapore time), a defence ministry official said.
"We will not only reach those who have perpetrated this incident but also those who, sitting behind the scenes, have conspired to commit such acts on the soil of India," Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said ahead of the meeting.
"There will be a loud and clear response soon," he said at a memorial lecture for a former Indian Air Force chief.
India has in the past accused Islamist militant groups based in Pakistan, which it says are trained and supported by the establishment in Islamabad, for attacks in India, including those in Mumbai.
Pakistan denies the accusations and says it only provides moral, political and diplomatic support to the insurgency in Kashmir.
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