India hunts militants in Kashmir as tensions with Pakistan soar

Reuters:

SRINAGAR, April 25 – Armed police and soldiers searched homes and forests for militants in Indian Kashmir on Friday and India’s army chief reviewed security there after the killing of 26 men at a tourist site – the worst attack on civilians in nearly two decades.

The attack triggered outrage and grief in India, along with calls for action against neighbour Pakistan, whom New Delhi accuses of funding and encouraging terrorism in Kashmir, a region both nations claim and have fought two wars over.

India’s army chief visited Srinagar, capital of Indian Kashmir, and authorities scoured Pahalgam, the scenic town where the attack took place on Tuesday.

India has said there were Pakistani elements to the attack, in which 26 men were shot in a meadow. Islamabad has denied any involvement.

The nuclear-armed nations have unleashed a raft of measures against each other, with India putting the critical Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance and Pakistan closing its airspace to Indian airlines.

The treaty, negotiated in 1960, split the Indus River and its tributaries between the two countries and regulated water sharing.

“We will ensure that not a single drop of the Indus River’s water reaches Pakistan,” Indian Water Resources Minister C.R. Paatil said in a post on X.

Pakistan depends heavily on the Indus system for hydropower and irrigation, and has said any attempt to stop or divert its waters will be an “act of war”.

U.S. President Donald Trump appeared to play down the tensions, saying he was confident India and Pakistan will figure out relations between themselves, although the attack had been “a bad one.” He said he was very close to both India and Pakistan and knew both their leaders.

“They’ll get it figured out one way or the other, I’m sure of that,” Trump said as he travelled aboard his plane. “There’s great tension between Pakistan and India, but there always has been.”

Indian financial markets fell sharply but recovered some of their losses to close 0.7%-0.9% lower. The Indian rupee fell 0.2%, while the yield of India’s 10-year benchmark bond rose four basis points.