SRINAGAR, India: At least 24 people were killed on Tuesday when gunmen opened fire on a group of tourists in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir, a senior police officer said.
A tour guide said he reached the scene after hearing gunfire and transported some of the wounded away on horseback.
“I saw a few men lying on the ground looking like they were dead,” said Waheed as quoted by AFP. The attack targeted tourists in Pahalgam, which lies about 90 kilometres (55 miles) by road from Srinagar.
The senior police officer in the region, speaking on condition of anonymity, described a massacre in which at least 24 people had been killed. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, AFP reported.
The Indian illegally occupied Kashmir has been under an intensified military crackdown since its semi-autonomous status was revoked by the Indian government about six years ago.
The killing comes a day after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with US Vice President JD Vance, who is on a four-day tour of India.
The attack follows violence in the region earlier this month between security forces and armed men, which resulted in six deaths, including four officers.
The Indian government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), revoked Kashmir’s special status in 2019, splitting the state into two federally administered territories – Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
The same year, a report by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights accused India of human rights violations in Kashmir and called for a commission of inquiry into the allegations.
Abomination
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said that “the attack is much larger than anything we’ve seen directed at civilians in recent years”, with the death toll “still being ascertained”.
“This attack on our visitors is an abomination,” he said in a statement.
“The perpetrators of this attack are animals, inhuman and worthy of contempt.” India’s interior minister Amit Shah, said he was flying to the site of the attack.
One senior politician, Mehbooba Mufti, a former chief minister, said shortly after the shooting that at least five people had been killed.
“I strongly condemn the cowardly attack on tourists in Pahalgam, which tragically killed five and injured several,” Mufti said.
Medics at a hospital in Anantnag said they had received some of the wounded, including at least two with gunshot wounds, one with a bullet injury to the neck.
