26 tourists dead in horror attack, question victims asked before being shot

India has closed its main border crossing with Pakistan among other serious measures targeting the country after 26 tourists were killed.

Tourists who were killed when gunmen opened fire in a picturesque town in the Himalayas were reportedly asked to recite Islamic phrases before they were shot.

At least 26 people were killed at Pahalgam in the Indian-administered Kashmir region on Tuesday, local time.

“The militants, I can’t say how many, came out of the forest near an open small meadow and started firing,” one witness told AFP.

“They were clearly sparing women and kept shooting at men, sometimes single shot and sometimes many bullets, it was like a storm.”

India’s government has not said if people were targeted by religion and some witnesses have described the attack as random, but others claim the tourists were asked about their religion before being shot.

Paramedics carry a wounded tourist on a stretcher at a hospital in Anantnag after assailants fired at tourists visiting Pahalgam. Picture: AP Photo/Dar Yasin

The cousin of one victim told India Today that two people in a uniform had approached him and his wife “and asked are you Muslim, if yes, then recite the Kalma (a declaration of faith)” before shooting him in the head.

The daughter of another victim told the media outlet that they also asked her father to recite an Islamic verse.

“When he failed to do so, they pumped three bullets into him, one on the head, one behind the ear and another in the back,” she said, as reported by India Today.

The day after the gruesome attack, India closed its main border crossing with Pakistan and suspended a key water-sharing treaty.

The country is also withdrawing several Indian personnel from Pakistan’s capital Islamabad and ordering Pakistanis in India home.

Pakistan will make “a tit-for-tat response” to the Indian measures, Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar said.

Relatives wail during the funeral procession of Adil Hussain Shah, a daily-wage worker, who died when militants opened fire. Picture: AP Photo/Dar Yasin

Analyst Michael Kugelman said the attack posed a “very serious risk of a new crisis between India and Pakistan, and probably the most serious risk of a crisis since the brief military conflict that happened in 2019”.

India and Pakistan have long accused each other of backing forces to destabilise one another, and New Delhi says Islamabad backs the gunmen behind the insurgency.

Islamabad denies the allegation, saying it only supports Kashmir’s struggle for self-determination.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry on Wednesday offered its “condolences to the near ones of the deceased”.

Security personnel inspect the site in the aftermath of the attack as food stall chairs lie empty in Pahalgam. Picture: Tauseef Mustafa / AFP

After India’s diplomatic measures, Pakistan said it would convene its National Security Committee, composed of senior civil and military officials and summoned only in exceptional circumstances.

“The National Security Committee will discuss all the measures and a comprehensive response will be given,” Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told local media.

India has been seeking an exit from the water accord for years and now wants to “use this incident, which we deplore, as an excuse to come out of this treaty,” Asif said.

The Resistance Front (TRF), a proxy for the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, has claimed responsibility for the attack, according to Reuters.

On Wednesday, smears of blood could still be seen on the grass where the killings took place as forensic investigators gathered evidence.

India has an estimated 500,000 soldiers permanently deployed in the territory but fighting has eased since Narendra Modi’s government revoked Kashmir’s limited autonomy in 2019, a move accompanied by a crackdown on dissent.

The deadliest previous attack on civilians was in 2000 when 36 Indians were killed on the eve of a visit by then-US president Bill Clinton.

The worst attack in recent years was in Pulwama in 2019 when insurgents rammed a car packed with explosives into a police convoy, killing 40 and wounding 35.