More than 20 people were killed in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday after militants opened fire on a group of tourists.
The attack is being said to be the worst on civilians in many years in Occupied Kashmir; the attack took place in popular tourist destination, Pahalgam.
The area is a Muslim-majority territory which draws thousands of tourists from across the India into the Occupied Kashmir.
As of now, it is suspected that more than 20 people have been killed in the attack while the exact figures have not been confirmed by the authorities.
The attack has been carried out by a relatively new militant group known as “Kashmir Resistance”, according to Reuters.
The militant group claimed the responsibility of the attack in a social media message, expressing discontent that more than 85,000 “outsiders” had been settled in the region, spurring a “demographic change”.
In 2019, Modi-administration abrogated the article 370 of Indian constitution, revoking the special status of Kashmir and taking away the little autonomy the region had.
The Modi administration also passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 which simply removed all the barriers for Indian citizenship for Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians in the Muslim-majority territory.
The move was seen by international organisations, including the Amnesty International, as an egregious policy to change the demographics and voter base of the region.
Meanwhile, Indian-affiliated extremist pages on social media have started blaming Pakistan, with one user writing, “Pahalgam attack is not just a terror attack, it’s a massacre. Carnage we saw in 1990s. Unofficially I am told 25 tourists are brutally killed and 8 injured. Attack planned to time with JD Vance visit and after Asim Munir’s anti-Hindu rant against India. This is another Pulwama.”
Another Indian-affiliated page by the username @TheLegateIN wrote, “Pahalgam Attack: 27 civilian tourists killed 12 injured. Necessity to carry out retaliatory airstrikes on Bahawalpur, Muridke.”
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