- Gunmen killed 26 male tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir in a planned attack that spared women and children.
- Survivors said the assailants identified victims by religion and recorded the massacre using body cameras.
- India blames Pakistan for the cross-border assault, while critics question the lack of security at the tourist site.
SRINAGAR, April 25 — Survivors of the deadliest attack on civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir in years described how gunmen emerged from forest cover and opened fire with automatic weapons on holidaymakers.
The attack, which killed 26 men, has enraged India, with New Delhi accusing neighbouring Pakistan of supporting “cross-border terrorism”.
Pakistan has denied responsibility.
Eyewitness accounts and Indian media reports suggest the assault was a well-planned and targeted operation designed to send a brutal message to New Delhi.
The victims were holidaymakers escaping the sweltering heat of India’s lowland plains, enjoying the tranquil meadows of the Baisaran Valley on Tuesday.
The popular site lies beneath snow-capped mountains near the town of Pahalgam.
Gunmen stormed out of the pine forests and began firing automatic weapons.
Indian media reported that the assailants wore body cameras to record the attack.
The shooters — whom Indian police identified as two Pakistani citizens and one Indian — separated men from women and children.
A witness told AFP that the gunmen “very clearly spared women and kept shooting at men”.
‘Go tell Modi’
One woman said she pleaded with the gunmen to kill her after they executed her husband in front of her.
The woman, Pallavi, said they told her she was being spared to deliver a message to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Go tell Modi,” the gunmen said, according to Pallavi’s account in the Economic Times.
Some survivors said the attackers asked people’s religion and demanded they recite the Islamic declaration of faith.
The cousin of one of the men killed said he was asked by the attackers if he was Muslim before they shot him in the head but spared his wife.
“They pointed the gun… and said ‘tell your government what we have done,’” Shubham Dwivedi’s cousin told India Today.
Other survivors told broadcaster NDTV that if the emergency response had arrived more swiftly, lives of those shot but not killed instantly might have been saved.
Shital Kalathiya, whose husband was killed, said the attack “broke” her.
“What shocked us the most was that there was not a single security person present,” she told the Hindustan Times.
“If they knew that such risks were present at that place, they shouldn’t have let anyone go up there.” — AFP
