Gunmen open fire on tourists, killing over 20 people at Kashmir resort

Two senior police officers said at least four gunmen, whom they described as militants, fired at dozens of tourists from close range.

Gunmen shot dead at least 26 tourists at a resort in Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said Tuesday, in what appeared to be a major shift in the regional conflict in which tourists have largely been spared.

Police described the incident as a “terror attack” and blamed militants fighting against Indian rule. “This attack is much larger than anything we’ve seen directed at civilians in recent years,” Omar Abdullah, the region’s top elected official, wrote on social media.

Two senior police officers said at least four gunmen, whom they described as militants, fired at dozens of tourists from close range. The officers said at least three dozen others were injured, many in serious condition.

Most of the tourists killed were Indian, the officers said, speaking on condition of anonymity in keeping with departmental policy. Officials collected at least 24 bodies in Baisaran meadow, some five kilometres from the disputed region’s resort town of Pahalgam. Two others died while being taken for medical treatment.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Police and soldiers were searching for the attackers.

“We will come down heavily on the perpetrators with the harshest consequences,” India’s home minister, Amit Shah, wrote on social media. He arrived in Srinagar, the main city in Indian-controlled Kashmir, and convened a meeting with top security officials.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was cutting short his two-day visit to Saudi Arabia and returning to New Delhi early Wednesday, the Press Trust of India news agency reported.

Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, a key resistance politician and Kashmir’s top religious cleric, condemned what he described as a “cowardly attack on tourists,” writing on social media that “such violence is unacceptable and against the ethos of Kashmir which welcomes visitors with love and warmth.”