Father-Son Duo Among 26 Killed In Pahalgam Terror Attack
Gandhinagar:
Three people, including a father-son duo, from Gujarat have been killed in a terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam.
The dead were identified as Sumit Parmar and his son Yatish Parmar from Bhavnagar, and Shailesh Kalathiya from Surat.
Two people from the state were injured in the attack.
The injured have been identified as Dabhi Vinod and Vijay.
The massacre unfolded around 3 p.m. in Baisaran, a scenic meadow often likened to "mini Switzerland".
Eyewitnesses said heavily-armed terrorists emerged from the surrounding ridges, identified non-Muslim tourists by name, and opened fire at close range.
The attack has triggered national outrage, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh condemning the assault and vowing justice.
The strike comes just weeks before the annual Amarnath Yatra.
The attack was claimed by The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot and proxy of the Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
TRF is known to operate under the facade of a "homegrown resistance movement", but Indian intelligence agencies have repeatedly exposed it as a front engineered by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to carry out attacks while maintaining plausible deniability on the international stage.
In their statement, TRF cited anger over the settlement of over 85,000 non-local Indians in Jammu and Kashmir, claiming it was part of a so-called "demographic invasion." They framed the attack as a response to India's post-2019 policies following the abrogation of Article 370.
A massive counter-terror operation is underway in the forested hills around Baisaran, led by the Army, CRPF, and J&K Police.
Union Home Minister Shah flew to Srinagar and held a high-level security review. He promised the "harshest punishment" for the attackers. HM Shah paid tributes to the tourists killed in the terror attack.
Prime Minister Modi has said that the terror attack has redoubled the resolve of the nation to eradicate terrorists from Indian soil.
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