Valley 'United Against Terror': Is Pahalgam Attack Kashmir's Watershed Moment?
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Lal Chowk and Dal Lake felt different - free tea and fruits for tourists and 'United Against Terror' posters were seen where once anti-India messages stood.
A week after 26 people were killed in a terror attack in Baisaran, Pahalgam, the picturesque tourist destination is like a ghost town. The tell tale signs of what lies in store begin as you board the flight to Srinagar. On a flight with 230 seating capacity, 70 passengers were traveling, mostly Kashmiris who were going back home or people like us travelling for official reasons. The cabin crew says the number was about 60 for Srinagar-Delhi flight. And this has remained the average over the past four-five days. A day after the terror attack, Srinagar airport had seen 110 flights land and take off.
One of the passengers on an April 23 early morning flight to Srinagar said he had paid Rs 40,000 for a Delhi-Srinagar flight. The cost from Raipur to Delhi was additional. Yet it all seemed less compared to the price his brother had paid with his life. Naresh Agarwal was traveling to get Dinesh's mortal remains and his widow home.
Prices have stabilised since then after Civil Aviation Ministry intervened but the tourist is staying away.
Watershed moment for Kashmir
The Pahalgam attack is a watershed moment for Kashmir. In so many years of covering terrorism in the valley, I haven't seen locals hold posters saying – United Against Terror. I have seen youngsters block highways, pelt stones after Burhan Wani was killed. I have seen them silent when Pulwama attack killed CRPF men. I have seen them locked down post the abrogation of Article 370. But April 2025 was different. At Lal Chowk, just next to the famous clock tower, posters offered free tea, coffee and biscuits to tourists. Once the same space was used to put up anti-India posters. On Dal Lake, a shikara wala offered free fruits to tourists. They all had 'United Against Terror posters' hanging from the boats. No government agency had prodded them to do so. No candle light march was orchestrated. Even the 'we are sorry' sound bytes didn't seem forced.
Srinagar: Fruit vendor has started offering free fruit to tourists in shikara at Dal Lake pic.twitter.com/sYZtL10dXz — News18 JKLH (@News18Kashmir) April 29, 2025
In Pahalgam on Friday, the fourth day after the attack, the protest post Jumma namaz seemed organic. The pony wallahs, the drivers, the hotel owners were genuinely worried about their bread and better. No tourist would impact them economically, but were these protests just influenced by economic factors? Would Adil sacrifice his life only to save his daily bread? It looked like a genuine horror that Kashmiris were feeling at the manner the tourists were killed.
This seems the very reason, perhaps, why The Resistance Front was forced to retract from its earlier claim of carrying out the Pahalgam attack. In a belated retraction, the Lashkar front claimed that they were victims of a cyber attack. The reality is terror groups and their Pakistani aakas are on a backfoot, not estimating the kind of reaction from the average Kashmiri that we saw.
Post script – A change in mood, however, could be noticed as houses of alleged terrorists were demolished one after the other within three days of of the attack.
In Murran, Pulwama, neighbours of Lashkar terrorist Ehsan Ul Haq asked, 'We were with you, standing shoulder to shoulder in condemning Pahalgam terror attack. Why punish us?" All the houses next to Haq's family home suffered extensive damage. Most will be unliveable for some time. The same sentiments of 'Why punish us for deeds of someone who no longer lives here' echoed from Tral, Bijbhera and Shopian too.
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Will the collateral damage be forgiven on the altar of 'Pahalgam horror'? Is 'United Against Terror" here to stay as a sentiment in Kashmir?
Pahalgam could indeed be Kashmir's watershed moment.
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