For Kashmir watchers, the brazen terror attack on tourists near Pahalgam on Tuesday amid US vice president JD Vance’s trip to India brought back memories of the Chittisinghpura massacre of 25 years ago during a visit by then US president Bill Clinton.
Then, as now, the focus of the terrorists appeared to be on dragging the Kashmir issue back to the international stage, though India has largely stymied such efforts with the scrapping of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status in 2019 and a sustained crackdown on terrorist groups active in the region.
With reports from Kashmir suggesting that The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), has claimed responsibility for the attack on tourists at Baisaran meadow that left nearly 30 people dead, there will be suspicions about the possibility of complicity of Pakistan’s security establishment in the assault.
The attack came less than a week after Pakistan Army chief Gen Asim Munir described Kashmir as the “jugular vein” of his country while addressing the Overseas Pakistanis Convention in Islamabad on April 16. In remarks that were rubbished by the external affairs ministry, Munir said: “It was our jugular vein, it is our jugular vein, we will not forget it. We will not leave our Kashmiri brethren in their heroic struggle against the Indian occupation.”
Kashmir watchers noted that the attack also came at a time when the Pakistani security establishment is facing domestic scrutiny and pressure for its inability to tackle a resurgent Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, which has challenged the control of civilian authorities in parts of the country’s northwest, and insurgent groups in Balochistan, where the Balochistan Liberation Army recently hijacked a passenger train with 380 people on board.
“The attack comes at a time when there has been a relative lull in Jammu and Kashmir, facilitating a tourism boom. Any internationalisation of the Kashmir issue could ease the pressure on the Pakistani military,” said a person in Srinagar who closely tracks the security situation, declining to be named.
Attacks targeting tourists in Jammu and Kashmir have been rare in recent years. The last major attack on visitors occurred in June last year, when nine people were killed and 33 injured as a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims fell into a gorge after terrorists attacked it.
With the security situation showing gradual signs of improvement in recent years, the central government hosted a G20 tourism meeting in Srinagar in 2023 to reflect the return of normalcy and peace after the crackdown on political activists that followed the abrogation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status in August 2019.