The horrific terror attack on tourists, the first in years to shatter Kashmir’s fragile peace, turned Pahalgam’s serene Baisaran meadows into a scene of carnage on April 22, 2025, claiming at least 26 lives, including a newlywed Navy officer. These Lashkar-e-Taiba-linked attackers, dressed in military gear and recording their brutality with body cameras, slipped out of the forests to gun down innocent people—men, women, elderly—who had come to soak in the valley’s beauty.

Survivors describe a living nightmare: a gunman demanding victims’ names and religions before shooting a man in the head, his wife’s cries drowned by gunfire; bodies scattered across the grass, some still holding snacks, others lying beside loved ones pleading for help. The Resistance Front, an offshoot of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, claimed this slaughter, citing “demographic changes" while leaving behind broken families and a death toll that may rise as the wounded cling to life.

The gall of this massacre in a place known as “mini-Switzerland" sparks raw fury. These killers didn’t just strike—they hunted, firing at close range to ensure no one escaped. A 26-year-old Navy lieutenant, married just six days, saw his future erased, leaving his bride to mourn a love destroyed. An 83-year-old from Tamil Nadu and a 65-year-old woman from Odisha were among the injured, their joyful trip twisted into a blood-stained tragedy. The images sear your mind: locals rushing the wounded on ponies down rocky paths, helicopters circling a valley now drenched in grief. This wasn’t just an attack—it was a deliberate blow to hope, a cruel wound to a Kashmir striving for peace, orchestrated by those who thrive on chaos and division.

Kashmir, for years a cauldron of unrest, has been clawing its way toward normalcy, a transformation that Pakistan’s terror machinery cannot stomach. The abrogation of Article 370 in 2019 marked a turning point, dismantling the legal barriers that fuelled separatist dreams and opening........

© News18