The worst terror attack in Indian-administered Kashmir since more than a decade took place in broad light on April 22. Twenty-six Hindu travellers were singled out and executed by jihadists.  ,
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The Resistance Front ( TRF), a Pakistan-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba ( LET ) proxy, is to blame for the horrifying attack. TRF, which is backed by Pakistan’s intelligence agency ( ISI), was co-founded by Hafiz Saeed, one of the co-conspirators of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, in which more than 160 people were murdered.
Islamist terrorists targeted non-Muslims to take them during this week’s murder in Pahalgam, a city in the Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir, according to sources and witnesses. They shot those who had not been circumcised and checked them for sex. They even asked people to read “kalma” to detect non-Muslims and shot them —”kalma” in Islam is a declaration of faith and serves as the allegiance to God. Those who couldn’t read it were shot and deemed non-Muslims.
According to sources, in one instance, a criminal approached a few and asked them if they were Muslims or Hindus. When they told him they were Muslims, he shot them, according to sources. Video footage killed by individuals showed body lying on a grass with people crying and pleading for help.
This is not the first terror invasion by Pakistan against Indians in Kashmir and other parts of the world. LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed ( JEM), two of the country’s most active terrorist organizations, have launched terror attacks in both Kashmir and other parts of India for decades. They have been designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations by the US. JeM, for example, was concerned for the September 18, 2016, assault on an American military base, killing 19 American troops and leading to an increase in tensions between India and Pakistan.  ,
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There has been a conflict in Kashmir that has continued since 1947 ( currently fought by India, Pakistan, and China ). Pakistan occupies nearly 30, 160 square. the Northern Areas and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir ( PoK ) in miles. 16 500 square meters is controlled by China. miles of Kashmir ( through a boundary settlement with Pakistan and occupation of land during the 1962 Indo-China War ), while the remaining territory forms the Indian Union Territories ( UT) of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
The terrorist attack in Kashmir occurred days after Asim Munir, the head of the Pakistan Army, called Kashmir” the throat vein” of Pakistan’s capital Islamabad.
General Munir addressed the Overseas Pakistanis Convention in Islamabad on April 16 and stated that “our approach is definitely clear, it was our throat spirit, it will be our jugular vein, we will not miss it. We will not abandon our Kashmiri sons in their noble struggle”.
He stated to a group of Pakistanis living abroad that they were the country’s ministers and that they must remember that they are” the country’s diplomats” and that they must respect a” better philosophy and society.”
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On April 16, 2025, columnist Taha Siddiqui posted a picture of Asim Munir, Pakistan’s 11th Chief of Army Staff, speaking to a meeting of Pakistanis based abroad. One of the most powerful men in Pakistan gloated about the fundamental goal that every Bangladeshi Muslim should have, largely believing that Pakistan is the Islamic State that existed before ISIS, with his chest out, a happy grin on his face, and head high.
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He advised his babies to be wary of telling them about Pakistan’s history. Our forefathers thought that we were distinct from the Hindus in every aspect of living. Our cultures, customs, practices, beliefs, and goals are all unique.
According to blogger Nupur Sharma:
General Asim Munir’s speech to international Pakistanis boldly glorifies Pakistan as a divinely appointed Muslim position, paralleling it with the initial Islamic Caliphate. Munir corresponds Pakistan’s fundamental ideology with that of ISIS by asserting spiritual power and the Two-Nation Theory. He explains how Pakistan has influenced contemporary ideology moves from its beginning as the intellectual model of autocratic expansionism.
The Resistance Front claimed responsibility for the April 22 massacre in Kashmir, saying,” More than 85, 000 domiciles have been issued to non-locals, creating a pathway for demographic change” . ,
Unfortunately, a previously predominantly Hindu location in Kashmir was the site of an ethnic purging campaign against Hindus and other non-Muslims.
Between 1989 and 1991, the Pakistan-sponsored rebellion had plans to communally cleansing Kashmir of non-Muslims in order to alter the government’s populations. During that period, over 350, 000 Kashmiri Hindus were ethnically cleansed from the Valley ( over 95 % of the Valley’s indigenous Hindu population ) in a campaign of targeted killings, rape, threats, and destruction of properties and religious sites.
Our people were killed, one older Kashmiri Hindu told the BBC. I witnessed a woman being tortured with smoke bottoms. Another man had his eyes pulled out and his body hung on a tree …”  ,
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The Hindu American Foundation ( HAF ) points out:
Ancient Kashmir was renowned as a centre for Hindu and Buddhist education for thousands of years, with a majority of its population Hindu. Muslim invasions from Central Asia took power in the 14th centuries. Up until the late 1700s, Hindus endured periods of persecution that caused widespread migrations from the area, equating to about once every century. Sikh kings in the area were in power in the early 1800s, followed by a Hindu kingdom from the middle of the 1800s until 1947.
In 1947, the Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir became part of the Republic of India. The largest Kashmiri political party, which had previously supported the arrival, was forced to join the place as soon as the Muslim armed troops and Pashtun tribesmen began to invade. To combat the problems by Pakistan, American forces were deployed. In 1948, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 47 requiring all Muslim military personnel to be withdrawn from the place before a plebiscite—which may have confirmed the person’s wishes to visit India—could get called. Pakistan increased its military reputation, but there was no vote held. 41, 000 Hindu families were forced to retreat Pashtun warriors in Kashmir that were still outside of India.  ,
An insurrection sponsored by Pakistan’s defense and intelligence services swept through the Kashmir Valley in 1989. Husain Haqqani, the previous Pakistani ambassador to the US, claimed that the Pakistani army had” seen for decades the philosophy of Pakistani Islamists” behind the warfare in Kashmir. Since then, almost 15, 000 residents have been killed in militant-related crime.
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Numerous fatal attacks on Kashmiri Indians carried out by Pakistan-backed Islamist terrorist organizations during the 1990s and 2000s were a part of these years. For example, on April 17, 1998, Hizbul Mujahideen beheaded 27 Hindus in the townships of Prankote and Dakikote because they had refused to convert. In Nadimarg, on March 24, 2003, 24 Kashmiri Hindus were murdered in the Nandigram Shopian area by LeT.  ,
LeT and Hizbul Mujahideen massacred 23 Hindus near Ganderbal on January 25, 1998, in Wandhama. In Chapnari, on June 19, 1998, 26 Hindus were murdered during marriage ceremonies in Doda by LeT and Hizbul Mujahideen.  ,
The Hizbul-Mujahideen murdered 35 Sikh people in the Kashmir city of Chittsinghpora on March 20, 2000.  ,
29 Hindu labourers were killed by LeT in a tenement near Jammu on July 13th, 2002, in Qasim Nagar. At least 35 Hindu people were killed in Doda and Udhampur on April 30, 2006, in two planned strikes coordinated by LeT.
On July 10, 2017, eight Hindu human travellers in Kashmir Valley were murdered by LeT. On February 14, 2019, in Pulwama, 40 police officers, primarily Hindus, were killed in a suicide bombing attack by Jaish-e-Mohammed ( JeM ). On June 9, 2024, LeT in Reasi killed nine Hindu travelers and injured 41 others.  ,
Pakistan consistently supports these terrorist organizations. Pakistan has been praised for its ongoing support of the Taliban in Afghanistan and other terrorist groups in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, according to a 2017 report from the European Foundation for South Asian Studies ( EFSAS ).” Their goals may range from overthrowing the Pakistani government, seizing Indian Administered Jammu and Kashmir, or support of Afghan Taliban,” the report states. It generally takes eighteen weeks for’ Mujahideen’ to get completely functional”.
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Al Qaeda ( Pakistan ), Lashkar-e-Taiba ( LeT ), Jamaat-e-Islami ( JI), Hizbul Mujahideen ( HM), Jaish-e-Mohammad ( JeM), Sipah-e-Sahaba ( SSP), Harkat-ul-Mujahideen ( HuM), Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan ( TTP), and United Jihad Council ( UJC), among others, are
According to a 2012 NATO research based on 4, 000 captured Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters ‘ 27, 000 investigations, the ISI controlled their actions, manipulated their soldiers, and detained those who were viewed as obstinate, according to a study conducted by the organization. Al Qaeda is commonly believed to also maintain camps in northern Pakistan where unusual extremists receive coaching in criminal operations.
In Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan has been a major contributor to the spread of Islamic militancy and extremism. In the document on World Patterns of Terrorism released in April 2001, the US State Department specifically cited Islamabad as the primary sponsor of radical groups fighting in Jammu and Kashmir. The criminal organizations i. The current struggling in Kashmir, which includes HM, LeT, Al Badr, JeM, and all of which benefit from Muslim support. The ISI has specifically urged young Mujahideen to participate in the conflict as part of the wider moral duty owed to Jihad ( holy war ), in order to replicate and transfer the success of the anti-Soviet Afghan campaign in Kashmir. The support to the Mujahideen in Kashmir covers the bounds of education, logistics, economic and philosophical support.
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Because the April 22 massacre victims were Hindus and not Muslims, they were killed by a Pakistan-backed terror group. Through its proxy terror organizations, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan has waged a jihadi, genocidal war for decades against both India and South Asia, both domestically and internationally. Tens of thousands of people have been murdered or forcibly displaced from their homes. The West must urgently reevaluate its blind support for Pakistan and hold the state of Pakistan accountable for the region’s numerous deadly terror attacks and ethnic cleansing campaigns.