At least two dozen people have been killed after gunmen opened fire on a group of domestic tourists visiting a popular beauty spot in Indian-administered Kashmir.
The attack took place in Pahalgam, a picturesque town in the Himalayas often described as the “Switzerland of India”.
The attack targeted tourists in Pahalgam, which lies about 90 kilometres (55 miles) by road from the key city of Srinagar.
The senior police officer in the region, speaking on condition of anonymity, described a massacre in which at least 24 people had been killed.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but rebels in the Muslim-majority region have waged an insurgency since 1989.
The region’s chief minister, Omar Abdullah, said the attack was “much larger than anything we’ve seen directed at civilians in recent years”. Reports suggest that there are a large number of wounded, with some in critical condition.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the perpetrators would “be brought to justice”.
“Our resolve to fight terrorism is unshakeable and it will get even stronger,” Modi wrote in a statement on X.
Home Minister Amit Shah travelled to Srinagar, Kashmir’s largest city, on Tuesday to hold an emergency security meeting.
The region’s Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha, said the army and police had been deployed to the scene.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. There has been a long-running insurgency in the Muslim-majority region since 1989, although violence has waned in recent years.
The attack took place in Baisaran, a mountain-top meadow three miles (5km) from Pahalgam.
A tourist from Gujarat, who was part of a group that was fired upon, said that chaos broke out after the sudden attack, and everybody started running, crying and shouting.
Video footage shared by Indian media outlets appears to show Indian troops running towards the scene of the attack, while in other footage victims can be heard saying that the gunmen had singled out non-Muslims.
Police said multiple tourists had been taken to hospital with gunshot wounds.
The area has been cordoned off and soldiers are stopping vehicles at checkpoints. A joint search operation by the Indian army and Jammu and Kashmir police is ongoing.
Several protests have been organised for Wednesday.
Since the 1990s, an armed separatist insurgency against Indian rule in the region has claimed tens of thousands of lives, including those of civilians and security forces.
