Individuals stand close to the razed home of Kashmiri militant Ahsan Ul Haq Sheikh’s household home in Murran space of Pulwama district on April 26, 2025.
Bilal Kuchay/NPR
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Bilal Kuchay/NPR
PULWAMA, India — Indian authorities have detained at the least 1,500 individuals in India-administered Kashmir after a militant assault killed 26 individuals final week, a prime police officer instructed NPR. A number of houses linked to alleged militants had been additionally destroyed.
India accused Pakistan of getting a connection to the assault — the worst geared toward Indian civilians in additional than a decade — claiming that the group that claimed duty was backed by the Pakistani navy. That ratcheted up tensions between the 2 nuclear-armed nations, who each management elements of Kashmir, however declare possession over the entire area.
An announcement from the Pakistani prime minister expressed concern over the lack of lives of vacationers, and denied any duty for the lethal rampage in an alpine meadow on Tuesday — by which gunmen appeared to focus on Hindu males, earlier than fleeing into the forested mountains earlier than safety forces might arrive. Days after the assault, Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said they had been open to a “impartial, clear probe” into what occurred.
Over the previous week, India has suspended visas for Pakistani guests, expelled a few of its diplomats, and halted a decades-old treaty that divides six rivers between the 2 nations. Pakistan introduced tit-for-tat measures. It additionally suspended cross-border commerce and closed off Pakistani airspace for Indian plane.
An aged man inspecting the demolished household home of alleged Kashmiri militant Adil Thoker in Guree village of South Kashmir.
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However some Kashmiri residents visited by NPR say Indian officers have taken different measures throughout the a part of the territory that it controls. Houses belonging to 5 suspected perpetrators had been destroyed, mentioned VK Birdi, a senior Indian police official within the area. He didn’t say who carried out the demolitions, and different Indian authorities didn’t reply to NPR requests for remark.
Ruhallah Mehdi, a member of Parliament from Kashmir’s ruling Nationwide Convention social gathering, mentioned he had acquired a number of messages from residents within the villages the place the homes had been blown up. “They’re certain that these acts had been carried out by safety forces. It is easy to know too — who else would have the ability to go and blow up homes like that?”
Relations of 1 suspected militant instructed NPR that safety forces rigged their home with explosives that they detonated, bringing down their house early Saturday.
The police crackdown began on Thursday night time, two days after the assault, when NPR confirmed that the houses of three suspected militants had been destroyed — together with the house of the one man that Indian authorities have named as being suspected in involvement within the assault, Adil Thokar.
When NPR visited Thokar’s home in Anantnag district on Saturday, the two-story house home was largely diminished to rubble. Solely the kitchen remained standing, solely accessible by a damaged window.
Thokar’s mom Shahzada instructed NPR that safety forces moved her and her neighbors round 100 meters from their home on Friday, earlier than it was introduced down in a blast.
Standing subsequent to a pile of rubble, Thokar’s mom mentioned she would assist punishment for her son if he is discovered responsible. “However I’ve not seen him since he joined the militant ranks in 2018,” she mentioned.
She mentioned police had additionally detained her husband, brother and two cousins.
Sneakers lined in mud and bricks in a destroyed home in Murran village within the Pulwama district, Kashmir, on April 26,2025.
Bilal Kuchay/NPR
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Some 20 miles away within the neighboring Pulwama district, Yasmeena, the sister of one other suspected militant Asif Sheikh, instructed NPR that her household house was destroyed by explosives early Friday the doorways and home windows of the two-level house had been blown aside.
“They deliberate this,” mentioned Yasmeena — who makes use of just one identify — referring to the safety forces. “Hours earlier than, they locked all of the cattle — not simply ours — into the sheds, and requested us to place fingers into our ears. After we requested why, they mentioned a blast will occur in your own home.”
In one more village, neighbors mentioned the house of one other suspected militant, Ahsan Ul Haq Sheikh was blown up on Friday night time.
A neighbor, who spoke to NPR on situation of anonymity for concern of reprisal, mentioned that his son referred to as him to hurry house as a result of safety forces had surrounded the world. My husband, son and daughter-in-law had been saved in a room and requested to remain indoors. I used to be in a neighbor’s home. There have been two blasts — we felt the whole lot was over.”
Individuals stand close to the razed home of alleged Kashmiri militant Ahsan Ul Haq Sheikh’s household home in Murran space of Pulwama district on April 26, 2025
Bilal Kuchay/NPR
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Bilal Kuchay/NPR
The blast shattered home windows of neighboring houses, broke doorways and cracked aside partitions. “If it is one individual’s mistake, why ought to everybody else be punished for it?” the neighbor mentioned.
In recent times, the Indian authorities has typically ordered demolition of homes of these accused of felony exercise, typically utilizing bulldozers. Thanks to those incidents, India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Celebration has been charged with deploying “bulldozer justice” — destroying houses and livelihoods of the minority Muslim group.
“Such acts serve the agenda of the right-wing on each side,” mentioned Mehdi, the Kashmiri legislator. “The terrorists that killed these innocents in Pahalgam, and the opposite right-wing, that desires to communalize this nation.”
