India downgrades ties with Pakistan after attack on Kashmir tourists kills 26

SRINAGAR/NEW DELHI: India announced a raft of measures to downgrade its ties with Pakistan on Wednesday, a day after suspected militants killed 26 men at a tourist destination in Kashmir in the worst attack on civilians in the country in nearly two decades.
Diplomatic ties between the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbors were weak even before the latest measures were announced as Pakistan had expelled India’s envoy and not posted its own ambassador in New Delhi after India revoked the special status of Kashmir in 2019.
Pakistan had also halted its main train service to India and banned Indian films, seeking to exert diplomatic pressure.
Tuesday’s attack is seen as a setback to what Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have projected as a major achievement in revoking the semi-autonomous status Jammu and Kashmir enjoyed and bringing peace and development to the long-troubled Muslim-majority region.

On Wednesday, Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told a media briefing that the cross-border involvement in the Kashmir attack was underscored at a special security cabinet meeting, prompting it to act against Pakistan.
He said New Delhi would immediately suspend the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty “until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably abjures its support for cross-border terrorism.”
The treaty, mediated by the World Bank, split the Indus River and its tributaries between the neighbors and regulated the sharing of water. It had so far withstood even wars between the neighbors.
Pakistan is heavily dependent on water flowing downstream from this river system from Indian Kashmir for its hydropower and irrigation needs. Suspending the treaty would allow India to deny Pakistan its share of the waters.
India also closed the only open land border crossing point between the two countries and said that those who have crossed into India can return through the point before May 1.
With no direct flights operating between the two countries, the move severs all transport links between them.
Pakistani nationals will not be permitted to travel to India under special South Asian visas, all such existing visas were canceled and Pakistanis in India under such visas had 48 hours to leave, Misri said.
All defense advisers in the Pakistani mission in New Delhi were declared persona non grata and given a week to leave. India will pull out its own defense advisers in Pakistan and also reduce staff size at its mission in Islamabad to 30 from 55, Misri said.
“The CCS reviewed the overall security situation and directed all forces to maintain high vigil,” Misri, the most senior diplomat in the foreign ministry, said referring to the security cabinet.
“It resolved that the perpetrators of the attack will be brought to justice and their sponsors held to account...India will be unrelenting in the pursuit of those who have committed acts of terror, or conspired to make them possible,” he said.
There was no immediate response to the Indian announcement from Pakistan’s Foreign Office.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called a meeting of the National Security Committee on Thursday morning to respond to the Indian government’s statement, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar posted on X.

An Indian military helicopter is seen in flight as viewed from Baisaran, a day after tourist attack in Pahalgam, about 90 kilometers from Srinagar on April 23, 2025. (AFP)

Tourist boom
India’s response came a day after the attack in the Baisaran Valley in the Pahalgam area of the scenic, Himalayan federal territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
The region has been at the heart of India-Pakistan animosity for decades and the site of multiple wars, insurgency and diplomatic standoffs.
The dead included 25 Indians and one Nepalese national and at least 17 people were also injured in the shooting that took place on Tuesday.
It was the worst attack on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai shootings, and shattered the relative calm in Kashmir, where tourism has boomed as an anti-India insurgency has waned in recent years.
A little-known militant group, the “Kashmir Resistance,” claimed responsibility for the attack in a social media message. It expressed discontent that more than 85,000 “outsiders” had been settled in the region, spurring a “demographic change.”
Indian security agencies say Kashmir Resistance, also known as The Resistance Front, is a front for Pakistan-based militant organizations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen.
Pakistan denies accusations that it supports militant violence in Kashmir and says it only provides moral, political and diplomatic support to the insurgency there.
“We are concerned at the loss of tourists’ lives,” Pakistani foreign ministry spokesperson Shafqat Ali Khan said in a statement earlier on Wednesday. “We extend our condolences to the near ones of the deceased and wish the injured a speedy recovery.”

Setback to Modi
In Kashmir, security forces rushed to the Pahalgam area and began combing the forests there in search of the attackers.
Police also released sketches of three of the four suspected attackers, who were dressed in traditional long shirts and loose trousers and one of them was wearing a bodycam, one security source said.

Indian soldiers search around Baisaran meadow as part of a manhunt on April 23, a day after gunmen massacred 26 tourists in the region's deadliest attack on civilians since 2000. (AFP)

There were about 1,000 tourists and about 300 local service providers and workers in the valley when the attack took place, he said.
On Wednesday, the federal territory shut down in protest against the attack on tourists, whose rising numbers have helped the local economy.
Protesters turned out in several locations shouting slogans such as “Stop killing innocents,” “Tourists are our lives,” “It is an attack on us.”
“I want to say to the people of the country that we are ashamed, Kashmir is ashamed,” former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti said. “We are standing with you in this time of crisis.”
Airlines were operating extra flights through Wednesday from Srinagar, the summer capital of the territory, as visitors were rushing out of the region, officials said.
Militant violence has afflicted Kashmir, claimed in full but ruled in part by both Hindu-majority India and Islamic Pakistan, since the anti-Indian insurgency began in 1989. Tens of thousands of people have been killed, although violence has tapered off in recent years.

KARACHI: Thick black smoke clawed at the sky last week over the industrial zone in Pakistan’s largest city as firefighter Syeda Masooma Zaidi raced toward the raging blaze in Karachi.
The storage facility was packed with truck and car tires, and the flames leapt hungrily, black plumes twisting skyward. Heat shimmered off the asphalt, turning the air heavy and acrid, stinging her eyes and lungs.
Zaidi did not hesitate amid the deafening roar, hose in hand, her helmet strapped tight.
The 23-year-old and the rest of her firefighting team — all men — aimed the jets of water at the molten rubber, which hissed and steamed under the torrent. The team worked methodically, every movement precise, every second critical.
Hours later, the blaze was under control. Nearby factories were spared, no lives were lost — though the damage ran into tens of thousands of dollars (millions of Pakistani rupees).
When the firefighters emerged from the smoke, their faces streaked with soot, dozens of onlookers cheered behind safety lines.
Zaidi is a rare sight in a country where women firefighters were mostly unheard-of until 2024. Her career — like those of other women in Pakistan’s emergency services — underscores the gradual inroads being made in the staunchly patriarchal and traditional Islamic nation.
Some were inspired when Shazia Perveen became Pakistan’s very first woman firefighter in 2010 in eastern Punjab province, where she is now a trainer. In Sindh province, where Karachi is the capital, women started joining firefighting services in 2024 after getting their training in Punjab.
And though they still make up less than 1 percent of Pakistan’s firefighters, authorities say more women are likely to join firefighting units in the coming years in the country of 255 million.
Most Pakistani women who go into professional fields choose careers as doctors, engineers or teachers, Zaidi said. She wanted to show that “we can do this too.”
Her chief fire officer, Humayun Khan, has praised Zaidi and her female colleagues.
Dr. Abid Jalaluddin Shaikh, chief of the Sindh Emergency Service, said Zaidi is one of 50 women firefighters in the province. Another 180 are in training as rescue divers, ambulance medics and emergency responders.
“The focus is no longer on breaking taboos,” he said. “Now we see real results.”
Zaidi graduated from the Punjab Rescue Service Academy, where she mastered high-angle rescues that use ladders, ropes and trolleys and typically involve victims trapped in skyscrapers, industrial towers or other high elevations, as well as various types of fire and water emergencies.
Still, she says she feels many doubt her ability on the job.
“When we arrive, people say, ‘She’s a girl — how can she rescue anyone?’” she said. “Every time we save a life, we prove that women can also do this job.”
Zaidi’s fellow firefighter Areeba Taj, also 23, recalled missions in Karachi where she and her female colleagues helped save lives amid chaos and smoke. Their supervisor, Ayesha Farooq, highlighted the unique strengths women bring, especially when victims include women and children.
“By joining rescue services, they earn respect — for themselves, and for the country,” Farooq said.
Zaidi, who grew up with seven brothers and one sister, says her motivation was simple: courage, duty, and faith.
“People still doubt us,” she said. “But every time we go out there, we keep proving them wrong.”
As the skyline above the Karachi industrial zone cleared last week, Zaidi returned with her team to the fire station, ready for the next alarm.
Every day on the job, Zaidi, Taj and their other female colleagues prove that gender is no barrier to bravery.

India downgrades ties with Pakistan after attack on Kashmir tourists kills 26