With US Vice-President J D Vance in India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on an overseas trip to Saudi Arabia, the biggest terrorist attack targeting civilians since the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack that has killed more than two dozen civilians in Pahalgam in Kashmir Tuesday frames one of the most significant internal security challenges for New Delhi — one with external ramifications.
Hindus Targeted In Pahalgam Terror Attack| Who Is Mastermind Saifullah Khalid
Why In News
- With US Vice-President J D Vance in India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi on an overseas trip to Saudi Arabia, the biggest terrorist attack targeting civilians since the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack that has killed more than two dozen civilians in Pahalgam in Kashmir Tuesday frames one of the most significant internal security challenges for New Delhi — one with external ramifications.
- Two terrorists were killed in heavy exchange of fire with security forces in Jammu and Kashmir’s Baramulla, the Indian Army said on Monday, an operation that comes a day after the deadly Pahalgam terrorist attack. Indian Army said the encounter broke out on Wednesday with approximately two-three terrorists attempting to infiltrate through general area of Sarjeevan at Baramulla’s Uri Nala.
Tourists Targeted
- Two-three militants opened fire at tourists in Baisaran, an off-road meadow in Pahalgam, a senior police officer told The Indian Express. The injured were rushed to a hospital, and a few of them are said to be in a critical condition. This is the first militant attack on tourists this year. The last time militants attacked tourists was in May, last year, when two tourists were injured. That incident also took place in Pahalgam.
What’s The Current Situation
- Jammu region has been put on high alert, and protests have broken out in several locations on Tuesday after the attack. People in Doda town held a demonstration and burnt effigies late Tuesday evening, the Kishtwar unit of Sanatan Dharam Sabha gave a call for bandh on Wednesday in protest against the attack.
- In Jammu city’s Gujjar Nagar area, people from the Muslim community came out in large numbers, raising slogans against Pakistan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who returned to Delhi on Wednesday morning cutting short his Saudi Arabia tour, held a high-level meeting with National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval and external affairs minister S Jaishankar at the airport over Pahalgam. Union home minister Amit Shah had left for Kashmir on Tuesday.
What Is The Resistance Front
- Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) co-founded by Hafiz Saeed, has claimed the responsibility of killing at least 26 tourists in Pahalgam on Tuesday. TRF came into existence in 2019 as a proxy outfit of LeT in the aftermath of the abrogation of Article 370 and revocation of special status to J&K in August that year.
- In January 2023, the MHA declared the TRF a “terrorist organisation” under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for propaganda on terror activities, recruitment of terrorists, infiltration of terrorists and smuggling of weapons and narcotics from Pakistan into Jammu and Kashmir. This came months after TRF issued threats to journalists in Kashmir.
Who Is Pahalgam Mastermind Saifullah Khalid?
- Saifullah Khalid, also known as Saifullah Kasuri, is the deputy chief of LeT. Reports say he maintains a close connection with Pakistani terrorist Hafiz Saeed. Khalid, who gets full support of Pakistan, is a ‘favourite asset’ of army officers, and roams freely there. He is also infamous for giving several Jihadi speeches.
- Khalid has been instigating the Pakistani Army and brainwashing the youth, reports added.
- According to reports, two months before the Pahalgam terrorist attack, Khalid had reached Kanganpur in Punjab, Pakistan, where a large battalion of the Pakistan Army is based. A Colonel of the Pakistan Army, Zahid Zarin Khattak, had called him there to give a Jihadi speech. He there incited the Pakistan Army against India.
Revisiting Kashmir’s Dark Chapter (2000–2002)
- Indeed, since August 2019, after the special status of Jammu and Kashmir was revoked, the record surge in tourists to the state was seen as a bellwether for normalcy in the Valley. Given how tourism fuelled local employment and businesses, this was also seen as a pointer to a more prosperous future.
- Yet, the Pahalgam attack revived ghosts of the past — and a terror playbook that, security officials said, is all too familiar.
- For one, terrorist attacks on civilians while foreign leaders and officials were in the country were seen as a ploy to aim maximum international publicity. On the night of March 20, 2000, the massacre of 36 Sikh villagers in Chittisinghpora village of Anantnag district in Jammu & Kashmir by Pakistan-sponsored militants came just ahead of US President Bill Clinton’s visit from March 21-25. Then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had raised Pakistan’s involvement with Clinton.
- Two years later, when US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Christina B Rocca was visiting India, a terrorist attack took place on May 14, 2002, near Kaluchak in J&K. Three militants attacked a Himachal Road Transport Corporation bus from Manali to Jammu and killed seven people. They then entered the family quarters of the Army and fired indiscriminately, killing 23 people, including 10 children, eight women and five Army personnel. The age of the children killed ranged from four to 10 years. Thirty-four people were injured in the attack.
- The Pahalgam attack also comes a week after Pakistan Army chief General Asim Munir’s statement that Kashmir is Islamabad’s “jugular vein” which was met with a sharp riposte from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
- Addressing the Overseas Pakistani Convention in Islamabad last week, General Munir had said: “Our stance is absolutely clear, it was our jugular vein, it will be our jugular vein, we will not forget it. We will not leave our Kashmiri brothers in their heroic struggle.”
- “Our religions are different, our customs are different, our traditions are different, our thoughts are different, our ambitions are different. That was the foundation of the two-nation theory that was laid there. We are two nations, we are not one nation,” Munir had said in one of his strongest statements in the recent past.
- Responding to questions on Munir’s remarks, MEA’s official spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said on Thursday: “How can anything foreign be in a jugular vein? This is a Union Territory of India. Its only relationship with Pakistan is the vacation of illegally occupied territories by that country.”
