Kashmir terror prompts revenge attacks across India

For Javed Ahmad, Sunday evening was like any other. The 31-year-old was having dinner with his roommates when the conversation turned to work.

The five men, all from Kashmir, were discussing their seasonal business in Mussoorie, a tourist hub in Uttarakhand in northern India where they sell Kashmiri goods. They had never felt like outsiders there before.

However, that evening, one of the men received a video on his phone showing two Kashmiri vendors in the region being slapped. The footage left them shaken.

Although the police detained the culprits, Ahmad and his colleagues did not feel safe enough to stay in Mussoorie. “We’ve never felt this scared before,” Javed told The i Paper.

He said while talking about how he and 16 others had left the mountainous tourist destination to return to Kashmir.

“We left everything behind, even the dirty utensils we were eating from,” he said.

The incident was one of many reported across India in the days following a terrorist attack last Tuesday which killed more than two dozen Indian tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir.

India has accused Pakistan of supporting the militants behind the attack, something Islamabad has denied. New Delhi has vowed revenge and ordered nearly all Pakistani citizens to leave the country.

Yesterday Pakistan said it had “credible intelligence” that India was planning to attack it in the “next 24-36 hours on the pretext of baseless and concocted allegations of involvement in the Pahalgam incident”. There was no immediate comment from Indian officials.

India and Pakistan both claim Kashmir but each administers only part of the region, which has been a flashpoint between the two nuclear-armed countries that have fought three wars over the region.

The attack last Tuesday has prompted fury, and Kashmiris have been harassed, assaulted and abused in several Indian cities by right-wing Hindu groups in what many describe as a campaign of collective punishment.

For many Kashmiris, while the fear is nothing new, it has escalated since the attack. Every year thousands of Kashmiris from the Himalayan region travel to the plains in India where they sell locally made items like shawls and carpets. Thousands of students are also studying in universities across India.

Nasir Khuehami, 27, convenor of the student body the Jammu and Kashmir Students Association, who is based in New Delhi, described the situation for Kashmiris in India as “grim”, adding that there had been over 17 reported cases of intimidation, some involving physical assault, others resulting in serious injuries.

“The atmosphere is charged with anxiety, and a dangerous sense of othering is being allowed to fester unchecked. Three women have already faced harassment in separate incidents,” Kheuhami, who heads a student body of 800 volunteers across India meant to help Kashmiri students and traders, said.

Following the attack, many Kashmiris living in mainland India abruptly shut their shops or suspended studies and returned home. Students and traders have described their deep sense of fear.

“I don’t know why we always become the targets; those who committed the massacre should be punished, but what is our mistake?” said Adil Ahmad, a shop owner in New Delhi, referring to the repeated targeting of Kashmiris by right-wing groups.

Ahmad said he was avoiding speaking in Kashmir, or even Hindi when outside, fearing his accent might reveal his identity. “I speak in English with people and most of the time I just stay indoors,” he said.

Sahil Ali,* 20, a university student who studies nursing in north India, said that he had been lucky to survive an assault by men armed with knives and baseball bats. “A mob entered our college and began looking for Kashmiris, whoever they found was either beaten or abused,” he recalled.

Ali, who did not want to be identified, fearing repercussions from the institution, added that hundreds of Kashmiri students had left their studies midway despite being set to take their exams next month. “We decided to leave and save our lives,” he said.

Experts said the attacks on Kashmir were part of a larger pattern. “This is not spontaneous anger,” said Apoorvanand, a political commentator and professor at Delhi University who only goes by one name. “It’s a calculated campaign of degradation and violence by the government directed particularly at Muslims, and Kashmiris are often on the front lines of that hate.”

He argued that the attackers were using the Pahalgam incident as a pretext. “These assaults are being framed as sudden outbursts, but they are deliberate and cold-blooded,” he said.

The role of the media, he added, could not be ignored. He pointed to powerful parts of Indian media that often act as unofficial cheerleaders of ruling government.

“From day one, sections of the media began stoking anger against Muslims. When videos emerged of tourists praising Kashmiris for helping them during the Pahalgam incident, the narrative shifted to outright misinformation,” he said.

Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay, 79, an author and independent political commentator, said he had never seen the media and government so inseparable. “What a section of media writes and shows is no different from the government,” he said, referring to hateful coverage of Indian media on the attacks and their complicity in blaming the Kashmiris.

Mukhopadhyay, who has over four decades of experience in journalism, also blamed the silence of India’s central government for the attacks on Kashmiris, who, despite repeated calls from the valley’s leaders, including the chief minister Omar Abdullah, have not acted.

“The government has been silent on what is being done to Kashmiris in the country. If the government wanted to prevent violence against them in other states, it could have stopped. But it doesn’t walk the talk ever,” Mukhopadhyay said.

*name has been changed