Authorities in Indian-administered Kashmir have demolished the houses of at least 10 alleged militants and detained more people for questioning as investigations continue into last week's killings of 26 people. Indian security forces have used explosives to destroy the properties since last Tuesday's attack on tourists. At least one was reportedly linked to a suspect named in the shootings. India accuses Pakistan of supporting militants behind the killings, but has named no group it blames. Islamabad rejects the allegations. It was the deadliest attack on civilians in two decades in the disputed territory. Both India and Pakistan claim the region and have fought two wars over it. Troops from both sides have traded intermittent small-arms fire across the border for the past few days. Speculation continues over whether India will respond with military strikes against Pakistan, as it did after deadly militant attacks in 2019 and 2016. Authorities said last week they had conducted extensive searches in Indian-administered Kashmir, detaining more than 1,500 people for questioning since the attack near the tourist town of Pahalgam. More people have been detained since then, although the numbers are unclear. Officials have not spoken publicly about the demolitions but the houses targeted reportedly belonged to families of alleged militants active in the region or those who have crossed over to Pakistan. The demolitions at various locations across the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley began last Thursday, with the most recent occurring overnight on Saturday into Sunday. The region's top leaders have supported action against alleged militants but questioned the demolitions of the homes of suspected militants' families. Without mentioning the demolitions, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said the guilty must be punished without mercy, "but don't let innocent people become collateral damage". Former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti also criticized the demolitions, cautioning the government to distinguish between "terrorists and civilians". Last November, India's Supreme Court banned so-called "bulldozer justice", a practice which has been on the rise in recent years in India. Since the Pahalgam attack, a number of Kashmiri students enrolled in colleges in different parts of India have also reported being attacked or threatened by locals, asking them to leave. Kashmir, which India and Pakistan claim in full but administer only in part, has been a flashpoint between the two nuclear-armed countries since they were partitioned in 1947. Indian-administered Kashmir has seen an armed insurgency against Indian rule since 1989, with militants targeting security forces and civilians alike. India has not named any group it suspects carried out the attack in Pahalgam and it remains unclear who did it. A little-known group called the Resistance Front, which was initially reported to have claimed it carried out the shootings, issued a statement denying involvement. The front is reportedly affiliated with Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based militant group. Indian police have named three of four suspected attackers. They said two were Pakistani nationals and one a local man from Indian-administered Kashmir. There is no information on the fourth man. Many survivors said the gunmen specifically targeted Hindu men. The attack has sparked widespread anger in India, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi publicly saying the country will hunt the suspects "till the ends of the earth" and that those who planned and carried it out "will be punished beyond their imagination". Tensions between India and Pakistan rose within hours of the killings, resulting in tit-for-tat measures. India immediately suspended the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, a World Bank-brokered water sharing agreement between the two countries, prompting protests from Pakistan which said the stoppage or diversion of water would be "considered as an act of war". Pakistan retaliated further by suspending the 1972 Simla agreement in which both countries had promised to resolve their disputes by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations. The neighbors have also expelled many of each other's diplomats and revoked civilians' visas — already difficult to procure — leaving many stranded on both sides of the border. At least 500 Pakistani nationals, including diplomats and officials, have left India through the Attari-Wagah land border since the attack. As tensions spiral, India has alleged firing by Pakistan along the Line of Control, the de facto border between the two countries, for four nights in a row. Pakistan has not confirmed it yet. On Sunday, Modi repeated his promise to get justice to the families of those killed in the attack, saying it was meant to disrupt the normalcy the region was returning to after years of violence. "The enemies of the country, of Jammu and Kashmir, did not like this," he said in his monthly radio address. Over the weekend, a US State Department spokesperson told Reuters that Washington was in touch with the governments of India and Pakistan and wanted them to work toward a "responsible resolution", while the British Foreign Secretary David Lammy spoke to his counterpart in India and deputy prime minister in Pakistan. — BBC
