By Shinjinee Majumder & Abhishek Kumar
At least 26 people were killed in the picturesque Baisaran valley near Pahalgam in Anantnag district on April 22 in the deadliest terror attack targetting tourists in Kashmir in recent history. According to survivors’ accounts, three to four men in army fatigues descended from the dense Pine forests around 2 pm and fired indiscriminately at civilians enjoying their time in the lush meadows of what is popularly known as ‘Mini Switzerland’.
Though there is at least one Muslim name in the list of casualties, multiple survivors’ accounts clearly show that the terrorists tried to single out non-Muslims among the tourists. The wife of slain Florida-based engineer Bitan Adhikari, Sohini, has told the media that the perpetrators asked Muslims to stand apart. When none responded, they fired randomly. A family member of the late Shubham Dwivedi, a 28-yr-old man from Kanpur who died in the attack, told India Today, “Bhaiya and bhabhi were eating Maggi, when two people in uniform came to them, and asked are you Muslim, if yes, then recite the Kalma.” When they did not give a satisfactory answer, the gunmen shot Shubham. 35-year-old engineer from Bengaluru Bharath Bhushan proudly told the terrorists he was a Hindu. He was shot in the head. Assam professor Debashish Bhattacharya knew Islamic scriptures. The 58-year-old Bengali Brahmin started reciting the Kalma when he saw the killers advancing towards him. It saved him.
Ever since April 22, several cases of targeted attacks against Muslims, especially Kashmiris, have been reported from various parts of India which have been described in the mainstream media and on social media platforms as retaliatory attacks. In this article, Alt News attempts to monitor, track and document such attacks. It includes only those incidents which we could independently verify. This tracker will be updated as and when we receive information about more such retributive hate crimes against minorities and Kashmiris, and are able to verify them. Readers can reach out to us on our WhatssApp helpline (7600011160) with information on such targetted attacks, if any.
Dehradun, Uttarakhand/ April 23, 2025
Lalit Sharma from the Hindu Raksha Dal announced that members would go on rounds from 10 am on April 24, starting in Dehradun, and if they find a Kashmiri Muslim, then they would do treat them (treat, needless to say, here is an euphemism for targetted and /or assault). “We will not wait for the government to work… Kashmiri Muslims, you have time until 10 am tomorrow to leave from here, or else there will be an action taken against you that you can’t even imagine.” Lalit had uploaded the video from his official account and later deleted it.
This story was originally published in altnews.in. Read the full story here.