[Both India and Pakistan claim the Himalayan region of Kashmir, but it has been divided between them for more than 70 years. Since 1989, militants have waged an insurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir, seeking either to claim independence or to join Pakistan.]
By
Joanna Slater and Niha Masih
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Relatives
of Adil Ahmad Dar, who according to police carried out the suicide attack
on
a convoy of security personnel, sit inside Adil’s home. Forty paramilitary
officers
were killed as they traveled toward the city
of
Srinagar. (Danish Ismail/Reuters)
|
NEW
DELHI — Indian Prime
Minister Narendra Modi vowed Friday to punish those responsible for the
deadliest attack in three decades in Indian-controlled Kashmir as pressure
mounted on his government to take military action against militant groups in
neighboring Pakistan.
Modi described the “deep anger” in India a
day after a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a convoy of
security personnel in Awantipora, killing 40 paramilitary officers as they
traveled toward the city of Srinagar.
“Your blood boils at what happened,” Modi
said. He promised those behind the attack would “pay a very heavy price for
their actions.”
India made clear that it holds Pakistan
responsible for the unprecedented attack, leading to a fresh round of tensions
between the two nuclear-armed rivals. India and the United States accuse Pakistan
of supporting and sheltering militants that launch attacks into Indian-held
territory, something Pakistan denies.
Both India and Pakistan claim the Himalayan
region of Kashmir, but it has been divided between them for more than 70 years.
Since 1989, militants have waged an insurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir,
seeking either to claim independence or to join Pakistan.
Thursday’s attack on the security convoy was
the worst attack in the history of the militancy. It came as India is preparing
for national elections later this spring in which Modi is seeking a second
term. A staunch Hindu nationalist, Modi has made a muscular approach to
national security a key element of his political brand.
On Friday, candlelight vigils were held
across India in memory of those killed. Television channels showed scenes of
grieving relatives and images of a room full of coffins awaiting transport,
each one draped with an Indian flag.
Babulal Lamba, a day laborer in the state of
Rajasthan, said his 28-year-old son Rohitash was one of those killed. Rohitash
planned to come home to celebrate a holiday next month with his wife and
2-month-old child, his father said. “The attack is a security failure of the
government,” Lamba said. “We will find peace when the revenge is five times
this.”
A Pakistan-based militant group called
Jaish-e-Muhammad , claimed responsibility for the attack. Founded nearly two
decades ago, the group was designated a terrorist organization by the U.S.
government and has been linked to dramatic attacks inside India, including
assaults using car bombs.
The group was banned by Pakistan, but its leader,
a radical cleric named Masood Azhar, is reportedly based in the Pakistani city
of Bahawalpur. Officials in Pakistan deny they support or protect militant
leaders like Azhar.
On Thursday, the U.S. State Department issued
a statement condemning the attack as a “heinous act.” It noted that
Jaish-e-Muhammad is based in Pakistan and called on all countries to “uphold
their responsibilities” to “deny safe haven and support to terrorists.”
The Indian government said Friday it will
launch an effort to diplomatically isolate Pakistan and canceled Pakistan’s
preferential trade status, a symbolic blow to its struggling economy.
Ultimately, India will be obliged to respond
to the attack with military means, experts said. The difficulty is that such a
step risks “a cycle of escalation which you’re not sure you can control or
manage,” said Shivshankar Menon, India’s former national security adviser.
In 2016, a group of militants stormed an
Indian army base near the town of Uri in Kashmir, killing 19 soldiers. In the
wake of the attack, the Modi government launched what it called “surgical
strikes” across the heavily militarized frontier that separates Indian- and
Pakistani-controlled Kashmir. Indian commandos reportedly launched raids on
militant hideouts just inside Pakistani territory.
India had taken such actions in the past,
security experts said, but the government never previously made them public.
Pakistan, for its part, did not retaliate and denied that such cross-border
raids even took place in 2016.
It is only a matter of time before India
reacts militarily, said Happymon Jacob, a professor of international relations
at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi and the author of a recent book on
India-Pakistan relations in Kashmir.
Jacob said India might decide to repeat the
type of strikes it conducted in 2016 against militant camps in Pakistani
territory. It could also launch a “fire assault,” he said, which involves
increased firing of heavy artillery across the line of control that divides
Kashmir.
Such options are fraught with uncertainty
because there is no clarity on how Pakistan would react, plus the steps may not
have any lasting impact on militant attacks. “I do not see any significant
strategic options on India’s part,” said Ajai Sahni, a terrorism expert and
executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi. “All
the government is going to do now is try to engineer some kind of face-saving
event.”
In Pakistan, Thursday’s attack was viewed in
starkly different terms. The Nation, an English-language daily newspaper,
trumpeted the news on its front page on Friday with a headline saying a
“freedom fighter” attack had killed dozens of members of the “occupying force”
in Kashmir.
Pakistani politicians reacted with outrage to
Indian accusations that its government was complicit in the attack. “Islamabad
makes no gains from such an attack,” wrote Sen. Sherry Rehman, a leader of the
opposition Pakistan People’s Party and a former ambassador to the United
States. “Instead of a political response to years of brutal repression in
Kashmir, hysteria is being amplified against Pakistan.”
Back in Awantipora, the site of Thursday’s
attack, the mangled remains of the bus that had been carrying security personnel
and shards of glass were still strewn on the highway. All along the route,
gun-wielding security forces maintained a tight vigil, and markets remained
shut on what is normally a busy stretch of road.
About 10 miles from the site of the attack is
the home of the alleged attacker, Adil Ahmad Dar. His mother, Hameeda Bano,
said her 21-year-old son joined the insurgency last year. “He had a dream to
die for the holy war,” she said.
Ishfaq Naseem in Awantipora, India, and
Pamela Constable and Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this
report.
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