Cashmere is a land in wonders. An attack shows that it is also a cradle of despair.

Cashmere is a lot. It is a disputed border that India and Pakistan fought for more than three quarters of a century, making it one of the most torn and militarized areas in the world. It is an alpine dream of Bollywood filmmaker, her beauty and her trauma, offering the grain of love, desire and war.

Since 2019, when the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India has tightened its grip on the part of the cashmere controlled by the Indians, promising security and economic development, it has become a tourist hot spot drawing millions of visitors per year. In the account of government progress, cashmere is a brilliant success.

People in the region have their own story to tell. It is an alienation prex – enlarged by The horrible terrorist attack last week in cashmere – After years of life under the vigilant eyes of the security forces while being deprived of many democratic rights.

Indian troops have launched an aggressive and widespread hunt for killers who resemble a collective punishment for many in the region of the Muslim major. The authorities have detained thousands of cashmere To question and demolish the houses of at least 10 people accused in the attack.

“We are treated as suspects,” said Sheikh Aamir, lawyer in northern cashmere. “Whenever something happens, they all punish us.”

India said the terrorist attack, which had killed 26 innocent people near the city of Pahalgam, has “cross -border links”, involving the involvement of his neighbor Pakistan. Pakistan officials, who denied any role in the attack, said on Wednesday that they had detected signs that India was preparing to take military action in retaliation.

India did not comment on his military planning, but Mr. Modi condemned the attackers and promised to “shave” terrorist shelters. Air strikes from India along the border, or even a foray into Pakistani territory, are possible, analysts said.

These developments have spread fear among the cashmiris, many of which had already felt isolated from the rest of India because the right of the right vilified them and painted them as an aggressor.

Since the terrorist attack – in which all Hindu tourists except one were Hindu tourists – the Hindu nationalists, including the leaders of Mr. Modi’s party, have used the aggression to extend their demonization of Muslims. Which included the attack or Harassing the students of cashmere study in other parts of the country. Many said that they had huddled in their panic rooms.

“The attack on cashmere quickly became mass Islamophobia,” said Rohan Gunaratna, an expert in international terrorism.

Before the massacre, the cashmere had been in a period of relative calm since the Indian government put the region under its direct control, by removing the guaranteed semi-autonomy in cashmere in the constitution of India and by moving in thousands of soldiers.

But as the Indian government said it brought normality to the region, some cashmerts expressed their anger at what they called false propaganda.

Normality in cashmere has always been “superficial and misleading,” said Sumantra Bose, political scientist and author who studied cashmere. He described life in the region as a “real hybrid of Orwellian and Kafkaesque”.

Mainly motivated by local grievances, an insurrection in the part administered by the Kashmir Indians began in the 1980s, Pakistan ultimately supporting and hosting certain groups, according to experts. Attacks of militant groups often targeted Hindu, Forge an exodus of the minority community of cashmere.

The idea pushed by insurgent outfits – that cashmere should be an independent state or join Pakistan – has faded because the Kashmiris have largely renounced the idea of ​​separatism.

Militancy was “replaced by a deep alienation of cashmere policy,” said Siddiq Wahid, professor of human and social sciences at Shiv Nadar University near Delhi.

The disaffection, associated with brutal armed forces which show little mercy for the innocent cashmiris in their search for violent, could facilitate the emergence of analysts. This could also prevent unhappy cashmiris from diverting militant activities, analysts said.

“The villagers only have to divert their heads and not to report at all,” said Gunaratna, the expert of terrorism. “So they turn their eyes.”

A outcry that followed the Indian troops’ Kill the young chief of a prohibited Islamist outfit In 2016, offered clues that there could be “passive support” for activism, said Gunaratna.

But the Indian government has become complacent because “they bought their own pride,” he said. Less than three weeks before the attack near Pahalgam, Amit Shah, Indian Minister of Internal Affairs, said that the Modi government had “paralyzed” “the entire terrorist ecosystem fed by elements against our country” in cashmere.

The attack was a monumental security lance for a government that had strongly promoted cashmere as a dream destination for tourists, thinking that “activists would not attack tourists because they are so integral to the local economy,” said Gunaratna.

About 10 million people live on the Indian side of Kashmir, of which around 90% are Muslim, according to the census of India in 2011. It is the only Muslim majority in the country.

India and Pakistan claim all the cashmere, but everyone controls only a part. They fought several wars on the ground.

The defensive position of India has indicated the continuous presence of military and paramilitary troops in cashmere which actually transformed the region into a police state.

Analysts say that there could be up to 500,000 Indian soldiers in cashmere. The armed forces have often used excessive strength to eliminate cashmere activists. Thousands of innocent cashmiris died during demolitions and shootings. Others have been removed, missing or killed in “meetings” or extrajudicial murders. Government estimates have put the number of deaths at 45,000, but human rights groups say it is much higher.

According to data from the terrorism portal in South Asia. The militant attacks in cashmere and the shot along the contested border have passed from titles to footnote.

But the ingredients for the return of more pronounced terrorism to cashmere have been built in recent years, according to analysts. Tactics of the Modi government, including the revocation of the limited autonomy of the region, caused resentment in the community.

The new land laws promulgated after 2019 have enabled non-residents to buy goods in cashmere for the first time in decades. Although the Government said that laws were intended to increase investments, many Kashmiris considered them an attempt to modify the demography of the region.

There has also been an increase in censorship, in particular the liberal use of laws to prevent public rallies or other events in the name of public security.

Cashmere has become a popular tourist destination for the Indians because of its famous lakes and boat trips, and also because it has been part of India’s political identity for so long.

But in the representations of foreigners and photographs of the cashmere, the local population was pushed almost outside the framework, said Ashiq Husain, a resident of Pahalgam. “People have been used as simple funds,” he added.

After last week’s terrorist attack, the real cashmiris appeared, said Aamir, the lawyer in northern cashmere. With the absent security forces, they were the first to come to the aid of the wounded, and the people of the whole cashmere valley expressed their solidarity with the victims and their families.

“There is mourning in each house,” he said, “and yet we are still considered enemies.”

Pragati KB Contributed reports.