Pahalgam Attack: Putting Kashmir in perspective

Pahalgam Attack: Putting Kashmir in perspective

Fatimah Bint Muhammad

The Pahalgam attack, in which 25 tourists and one local were killed by five armed men in the Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir on 22 April 2025, should serve as an eye-opener for the Muslims in India, the majority of whom don’t seem to get out of their patriotic hangover, ever. 

Whenever such an act of violence happens, Indian Muslims run for cover. How terrified are they of upsetting the non-Muslim majority or of creating a controversy? Their apologetic stances go like this: “Violence has no religion” or “Islam condemns the killing of innocents.” Okay, I take it; I believe indeed Islam condemns the killing of innocents.
But let me ask you a question: Where were you all those years when it was happening and vice versa? When Indian authorities routinely killed, tortured, raped, and abducted civilians which includes children as young as 5 years old! Never heard you condemning the brutal oppression in Kashmir going on unabashedly for nearly eight decades now, which reeks of horrendous human rights abuse, the way you unanimously spoke out against the Pahalgam attack.

Never heard you raising slogans against the Indian Armed Forces when they extensively used pellet guns against young boys and teenagers, even little children were maimed and blinded to subdue protests.

Never heard you speaking in solidarity with the women of Kunan and Poshpora, when Indian soldiers mass raped women in this twin village during a search operation, the way you were on the streets to protest against the horrific gangrape and murder of Delhi-based Nirbhaya in 2012.

Pointing fingers at resistance is easy, in fact very easy, when our own child isn’t missing, when our own brothers aren't facing the barrel of their guns, and when the modesty of our own sisters isn't being tattered.  

Why this selective outrage if you are ‘really’ concerned about innocent lives? Why don’t you raise your voice against the terror activities of the successive Indian governments in Kashmir? Are Kashmiris less of a human? Are their lives cheaper than ours?

So, before you start this lopsided cry for justice, try to connect the dots!
When a whole community is systematically targeted for decades, when you snatch their rights to live with dignity and deny them justice, there would be some who would resort to violence to either defend their rights... or TO WAKE THE DEAD SYSTEM UP!

Nothing in Kashmir is normal. It has never been. Go down the lane and you’ll understand that the colonial mess was never cleaned up!
The story goes back to 1846 when the British sold Kashmir to the Dogra empire of the Sikh Community through the Treaty of Amritsar. The treaty saw Britain ignore the popular sentiment of the native inhabitants as it transferred control of land it did not rightfully own to the Sikh Empire, which held no demographic or political significance there.

Does it ring a bell? Just a reminder that the same pattern has been repeated in Palestine through the Balfour Declaration, which also underwent decades of oppression, killing, torture, and abuse of unimaginable magnitude. And it still is the place to witness horrendous crimes of human rights abuse intertwined with the current humanitarian crisis, where Gaza is on the brink of annihilation now.    

Coming back to the point, the Dogra Dynasty denied locals their basic rights. According to a British explorer William Moorcroft, The Dogras treated the Kashmiris “little better than cattle.” This sentence is enough to sum up the conditions the people of Kashmir were living in.
How can they forget the brutality of the Dogra regime on the fateful day of 13 July 1931, when thousands gathered at the Central Jail to witness the trial of Abdul Qadeer, who called Kashmiris to rise against the oppressive Dogra rule? As the time for zuhr salah approached, a young Kashmiri stood up to call for adhan. The Dogra governor ordered the soldiers to open fire at him. He was martyred. Then another man took his place to continue the adhan from where he left. He was shot dead too. This way 22 Kashmiris were martyred in their effort to complete the adhan.

If this wasn't enough of their brutalities, the Dogras believed that the ruler owned every acre of the land in Kashmir which inevitably reduced thousands of Kashmiris to abject penury…

In the year 1947 when the India-Pakistan partition took place the Hindus were supposed to remain in India, while Muslims were to go with Pakistan which was created for the very same purpose. Given Kashmir’s Muslim-majority population, its integration with Pakistan might have been the most natural outcome. Kashmir itself never wanted to be part of India. And here lies the catch! Kashmir was a Muslim-majority state with a Hindu ruler, who of course, wanted to go ahead with India. Indian authorities denied the people of Kashmir their rights and decided to impose their occupation of the state.

In contrast to exactly what they did in Hyderabad, which was a Hindu-majority state with a Muslim ruler. India suddenly woke up to the voices and rights of the Hindus of Hyderabad to be part of India.

Since then Indian Armed Forces in time pillaged, raped, killed and tortured their way to the occupation of Kashmir, so much so that today Kashmir is one of the most heavily militarized places in the world.

Why was India so wary of letting Kashmir go - either to Pakistan or as an independent state? Was it just India’s face-saving move? In reality, India is surrounded by Muslim states with Pakistan in its northwest, and Bangladesh in its northeast with Kashmir at the center. It feels threatened surrounded by muslim nations from all 3 sides. And if Kashmir goes to Pakistan, or even if it remains an independent state, since they (Pakistan and Kashmir) share a border, they together could create a larger Muslim belt in India’s northern territory.

Second, apart from separatist movement in Kashmir, there have been many other Separatist movements across India with Sikhs seeking their own Khalistan, Naxal-Maoist insurgency seeking separation, Assam separatist movements, Karbi Separatism, and Dravidian separatist movement in the south. Freeing Kashmir seems an act of self-sabotage to India as many Indian states were already disillusioned with successive governments’ atrocities, neglect, and poor leadership.   

In 2019, Article 370 was revoked by current Prime Minister Narendra Modi which proved the final nail in the coffin. Article 370 granted special status and semi-autonomy to this disputed region as it had the power to make its own laws in everything except a few spheres like Defence, Foreign Affairs etc. The people from outside Kashmir weren’t allowed to buy land/property in the region.

Before we delve deep into the situation in Kashmir post revocation of the Article 370, lets understand why it was scrapped in the first place?
It is to simply fulfill their Hindutva agenda of Akhand Bharat (Indian Supremacist State) and to integrate Kashmir with the rest of India. The revocation of Article 370 now enabled Indians (non-Kashmiris) to buy land and property in Kashmir which very soon is going to reset the demography of Kashmir as the muslim-majority state.   

No matter how hard the Indian government tries to paint a picture of normalcy and development in Jammu and Kashmir, the reality on the ground is far from being anything good. Through constant snapping of communication networks, suspension of fixed telephone lines, shutting down of the internet for months, the Kashmiris have been deliberately cut off from the rest of the world – a move to hide their heinous crimes since it curtails freedom of expression, and shuts down the work of media houses and journalists. 

Let's have a look at the internal situation in Kashmir post revocation of Article 370. 

On 19 January 2022, Stoke White Investigations released a press statement and issued a legal appeal to the London Metropolitan Police against two Indian government officials. In the address, both Indian army chief Manoj Mukhund Narvane and Home Minister Amit Shah have been cited for their war crimes against Muslims in occupied Kashmir.

In a grilling 41-page report based on 2000 testimonies taken over the past year, new proofs of torture, kidnapping, as well as the extrajudicial killing of activists, journalists, and other innocent civilians – with the particular targeting of Muslims in the region – point to the culpability of Indian security forces. The report also attests to Israeli intelligence forces being involved in the torture of victims, a nexus which highlights the partnership between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Israeli government.

The extensive report highlights several disturbing findings, which include 450 cases of torture, 1500 cases of pellet gun victims, 100 enforced disappearances, and 30 cases of sexual abuse. Many of these discoveries were corroborated by lawyers, human rights defenders, and practitioners, as well as NGOs and journalists.

Of the ground-breaking evidence available, Stoke White particularly focused on the case of Zia Mustapha. Zahid Zia, the brother of Zia Mustapha said: “Zia was found not guilty of any offence by Indian Courts. He was arbitrarily detained in different jails for 18 years of his life since the age of 15. In October 2021 we were told that Zia had been killed by Indian forces.” His family has made the following emotional plea: “We just want the dead body of Zia to be handed over to us – so that we can bury him with our hands.”

Other chilling testimonies include that of Imran Sultan, who describes his brother’s torture to be so severe that many of his body parts were “broken – like mutilation.” Sultan added the following details: “When I held his right arm after we recovered his body, [it] felt as if the arm was boneless – the bones had been crushed from severe beating. Blood kept oozing out from his mouth for several hours before he was laid to rest. He had severe internal damage.”

Further case studies include that of innocent civilians, children, and elderly women being shot dead, drowned, executed in home raids, or tortured to death. There is a whole section describing cases of gang rape and sexual violence by Indian army personnel, as well as torture, enforced disappearances, and pellet gun violence.

According to the report, while the Indian authorities routinely conduct acts of violence and abuse against Muslims and have been doing so for the past three decades, an overwhelming ‘culture of impunity’ is prominent. This is due to the 1990 Special Powers Act, which allows for the dismissal of scrutiny towards security personnel unless the “Indian authorities grant prior permission for sanction via courts to prosecute its own forces”. Despite years of human rights abuses, not a single Indian military member has been prosecuted for ‘unlawful conduct’ in Jammu and Kashmir, despite the mounting evidence.

The Indian government has adopted rhetoric derived from the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) to justify its violent attacks on Muslims in Kashmir. This has allowed them to reframe the conflict in the region from “a conflict of land due to divisions exacerbated by and inherited from colonialism, to a fight against ‘terrorism’.” Moreover, taking inspiration from the GWOT, they have implemented statutes and policies which discriminate against Muslims, such as house raids, arbitrary arrests, forced disappearances, and strict surveillance programmes.

Khalil Dewan, Head of Investigations at Stoke White, commented on the scope and nature of these transgressions by stating:

“The systematic nature of war crimes conducted by Indian authorities against Kashmiri Muslims has been documented, but this report brings forward new evidence of complicity between Delhi and Tel Aviv within a broader context of security policies and rhetoric invoked by the GWOT. This complicity has not been exposed in such detail before, and our data is growing.”
(Source: Islam21c)

Now putting decades of human rights abuse and violence into perspective, are we in a position to condemn what happened in Pahalgam, even if the Kashmiris are at fault? However, they are not!

The Pahalgam attack raises a few unsettling questions – is it merely a coincidence that the ‘so-called tourists’ killed in pahalgam include Manish Ranjan, a section officer with the Intelligence Bureau, Vinay Narwal Indian Navy Lieutenant, N Ramachandran about whom Goa Governor S Pillai mentioned as a ‘BJP worker’ in Kochi. Tage Hailyang, an Indian Air Force Corporal, Sameer Guha who was associated with the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation or is there more to what meets the eye? Is the word ‘tourists’ a smokescreen to hide the real agenda of their visits which the armed resistance fighters in kashmir were well aware of?

Apart from them, the ‘tourists’ were a few businessmen, a realtor and a cement dealer. This further needs clarification as we cannot afford to ignore the fact that after annulment of the Article 370, the government is desperately trying to settle Hindu population in the region to reset its demography as a muslim-dominated state.

And yes, if reports are to be believed, there was an Italian and an Israeli citizen on board too! And we all know Israel openly and directly supports India - from providing arms to training their soldiers on war tactics and strategies. They are hand in glove against Muslims – one can draw a striking parallel between Israel’s war on Palestine and India’s against Muslims.

All these puzzle pieces need to fit together to get the larger picture – were they ‘really’ tourists on a fun trip who were gunned down wrongly or a delegation on a vicious agenda to oppress and contain Kashmiri Muslims?

Today, as war drums beat in Kashmir, we saw how Hindu extremists trampled Pakistani and Saudi flags underfoot in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. Had it been only the Pakistani flag, we would have understood.. but why is the Saudi National flag which bears our Kalimah? It is not the trampling of mere flags, but it shows their deep-rooted hatred and bigotry towards Muslims, their kalimah and Islam as a whole. 

The same Indian Muslims who were making hue and cry about the Pahalgam attack demanding justice for the killing of ‘innocent tourists’ should also demand justice for all those innocent Muslims who were brutally attacked and threatened in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Maharashtra and Uttarakhand in the days that followed. Ask as to why hateful and chillingly Islamophobic songs were played calling Muslims as traitors? Why Kashmiris were evicted from their homes and assaulted? Why 1500 Kashmiri students were arrested? And why Konkona Khatun, a seven-month pregnant Muslim woman, was refused medical treatment by a Hindu gynecologist in Kolkata, West Bengal?

How can you be mute spectators to all this, especially against the disgrace they subjected the words of Allah SWT to?

Always remember, they have come for them, and they will come for you too – it's only about time. Their hate will reach you one day – understand the underlying faultline before it's too late.

Stand on the right side of history; put your loyalty and your allegiance in its proper place. Our loyalty is to Islam – Allah, His prophet and the Ummah. Our loyalty is to the believers, not the flags, not the borders or the kufr nation we live in. When fighting against Kufr forces, we should stand with the believers, and this is the core and central theme of Tawhid, the concept of “Al wala-wa-Al-Bara,” loving and hating for the sake of Allah SWT.