According to eyewitnesses, two to three gunmen in military fatigues started firing indiscriminately.
New Delhi: At least 26 people were killed and many wounded when terrorists opened fire in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam on Tuesday, 22 April 2025. Most of the casualties were tourists. Terrorists opened fire at a famed meadow near Kashmir’s Pahalgam town on Tuesday afternoon. This attack is the deadliest attack in the Valley since the Pulwama suicide bombing that took place on February 14, 2019. PM Modi spoke to Home Minister Amit Shah following the attack and asked him to take all suitable steps to deal with the situation.
A top intelligence source while talking to News18 said that “tourists were enjoying horse rides in the long lush green meadows of Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam when terrorists opened fire on them”. Twenty-seven, including foreign nationals, were killed and several injured in the terror attack, said the source.
According to eyewitnesses, two to three gunmen in military fatigues started firing indiscriminately, creating panic and chaos among the tourists present at the spot.
Meanwhile, the police said that the attack started around 2.30 pm as terrorists emerged from the dense pine forest surrounding the valley and started firing at a group of 40 tourists. What followed was mayhem as scared tourists hysterically asked the locals for help.
Doctors and other hospital staff have been deputed to Pahalgam while the CRPF and BSF have intensified their operations. Deployments have been placed at 15 sites.
The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of the banned Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), claimed responsibility for the horrific terror attack. Security sources say that the attack is being seen as part of a wider plot orchestrated by Pakistan to create an atmosphere of fear ahead of the Amarnath Yatra adding that these groups have now shifted tactics, forming smaller assault units that are targeting civilians.
Highly placed government sources said the motive could be to carry out a huge attack coinciding with the visit of US VP JD Vance. They also said that intelligence agencies had warned about a “hot summer” in Jammu and Kashmir this year following which Home Minister Amit Shah, home secretary Govind Mohan, and top intelligence officials had visited J&K.
The timing of the attack is crucial as the Union Territory will also begin preparations for the 38-day Amarnath Yatra which is scheduled to begin on July 3 and the location of Tuesday’s attack is a base for the Amarnath Yatra.
Major terror attacks on civilians in Jammu and Kashmir since 2000 include:
- March 21, 2000: Militants targeted the minority Sikh community in Chattisinghpora village in Anantnag district on the night of March 21, killing 36 people.
- August 2000: Thirty-two people, including two dozen Amarnath pilgrims, were killed in a terror attack at the Nunwan base camp.
- July 2001: Amarnath yatris were again targeted, this time at the Sheshnag base camp in Anantnag, killing 13.
- October 1, 2001: Jammu & Kashmir State Legislature Complex in Srinagar was struck by a suicide (fidayeen) terrorist attack, killing 36 people.
- 2002: Terror struck at Chandanwari base camp, and 11 Amarnath yatris were killed.
- November 23, 2002: Nineteen people, including nine security force personnel, three women and two children, lost their lives in an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) blast at Lower Munda in South Kashmir on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway.
- March 23, 2003: Terrorists massacred at least 24 Kashmiri Pandits, including 11 women and two children, at Nandimarg village in Pulwama district.
- June 13, 2005: Thirteen civilians, including two school children, and three CRPF officers were killed, and over 100 people sustained injuries when an explosives-laden car blew up at a crowded marketplace in front of a government school in Pulwama.
- June 12, 2006: Nine Nepali and Bihari labourers were killed in Kulgam.
- July 10, 2017: Attack on Amarnath Yatra bus in Kulgam, 8 killed.
The Pahalgam incident is one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in recent years in J&K.
