Homes destroyed and 1,500 detained in Kashmir as India cracks down following attacks

PULWAMA, India — Indian authorities have detained at least 1,500 people in India-administered Kashmir after a militant attack killed 26 people last week, a top police officer told NPR. Several homes linked to alleged militants were also destroyed.

India accused Pakistan of having a connection to the attack — the worst aimed at Indian civilians in more than a decade — claiming that the group that claimed responsibility was backed by the Pakistani military. That ratcheted up tensions between the two nuclear-armed countries, who both control parts of Kashmir, but claim ownership over the whole region.

A statement from the Pakistani prime minister expressed concern over the loss of lives of tourists, and denied any responsibility for the deadly rampage in an alpine meadow on Tuesday — in which gunmen appeared to target Hindu men, before fleeing into the forested mountains before security forces could arrive. Days after the attack, Pakistani prime minister Shehbaz Sharif said they were open to a “neutral, transparent probe” into what happened.

Over the past week, India has suspended visas for Pakistani visitors, expelled some of its diplomats, and halted a decades-old treaty that divides six rivers between the two countries. Pakistan announced tit-for-tat measures. It also suspended cross-border trade and closed off Pakistani airspace for Indian aircraft.

But some Kashmiri residents visited by NPR say Indian officials have taken other measures within the part of the territory that it controls. Homes belonging to five suspected perpetrators were destroyed, said VK Birdi, a senior Indian police official in the region. He did not say who carried out the demolitions, and other Indian authorities did not respond to NPR requests for comment.

Ruhallah Mehdi, a member of Parliament from Kashmir’s ruling National Conference party, said he had received several messages from residents in the villages where the houses were blown up. “They are sure that these acts were carried out by security forces. It’s easy to understand too — who else would be able to go and blow up houses like that?”

Family members of one suspected militant told NPR that security forces rigged their house with explosives that they detonated, bringing down their home early Saturday.

The police crackdown started on Thursday night, two days after the attack, when NPR confirmed that the homes of three suspected militants were destroyed — along with the home of the only man that Indian authorities have named as being suspected in involvement in the attack, Adil Thokar.

When NPR visited Thokar’s house in Anantnag district on Saturday, the two-story home house was mostly reduced to rubble. Only the kitchen remained standing, only accessible through a broken window.

Thokar’s mother Shahzada told NPR that security forces moved her and her neighbors around a hundred meters from their house on Friday, before it was brought down in a blast.

Standing next to a pile of rubble, Thokar’s mother said she would support punishment for her son if he’s found guilty. “But I have not seen him since he joined the militant ranks in 2018,” she said.

She said police had also detained her husband, brother and two cousins.

Some 20 miles away in the neighboring Pulwama district, Yasmeena, the sister of another suspected militant Asif Sheikh, told NPR that her family home was destroyed by explosives early Friday the doors and windows of the two-level home were blown apart.

“They planned this,” said Yasmeena — who uses only one name — referring to the security forces. “Hours before, they locked all the cattle — not just ours — into the sheds, and asked us to put fingers into our ears. When we asked why, they said a blast will happen in your house.”

In yet another village, neighbors said the home of another suspected militant, Ahsan Ul Haq Sheikh was blown up on Friday night.

A neighbor, who spoke to NPR on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said that his son called him to rush home because security forces had surrounded the area. My husband, son and daughter-in-law were kept in a room and asked to stay indoors. I was in a neighbor’s house. There were two blasts — we felt everything was over.”

The blast shattered windows of neighboring homes, broke doors and cracked apart walls. “If it’s one person’s mistake, why should everyone else be punished for it?” the neighbor said.

In recent years, the Indian government has often ordered demolition of houses of those accused of criminal activity, often using bulldozers. Thanks to these incidents, India’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has been charged with deploying “bulldozer justice” — destroying homes and livelihoods of the minority Muslim community.

“Such acts serve the agenda of the right-wing on both sides,” said Mehdi, the Kashmiri legislator. “The terrorists that killed these innocents in Pahalgam, and the other right-wing, that wants to communalize this country.”