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India’s anti-terrorism agency, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), has charged two Pakistan-based militant groups and six people in the attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir this April, that left 26 people dead.
The massacre in the tourist town of Pahalgam brought nuclear-armed India and Pakistan to the brink of war. India blamed Pakistan for the attacks – an accusation Islamabad denied.
Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) – designated as a terror organisation by the United Nations – and The Resistance Front (TRF) have been charged with “planning, facilitating and executing” the attack.
Pakistan’s government has not yet commented on the charges.
The TRF had initially said it was behind the attack but later denied its involvement.
The 1,597-page chargesheet, filed on Monday in a special court in Jammu, names the militant groups and six others, three of whom were killed by security forces days after the attack.
A man accused by NIA of being a “Pakistani terrorist handler”, Sajid Jatt, as well as two other men already in NIA custody since June have also been named in the chargesheet.
“During interrogation, the two men had disclosed the identities of the three armed terrorists involved in the attack, and had also confirmed that they were Pakistani nationals affiliated to proscribed LeT terror outfit,” NIA said in a statement.
The accused have been charged under relevant sections of India’s criminal code and its stringent anti-terror law. They have also been accused of waging war against India, the NIA statement said.
The NIA said its nearly eight-month probe traced the conspiracy to Pakistan and that further investigation is continuing.
Kashmir has been a flashpoint between India and Pakistan for long. The two neighbours claim the region in full, but control only parts of it. The countries have fought two wars over the restive region.
The Pahalgam attack was one of the deadliest militant attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir since 2019.
On 22 April, a popular tourist meadow turned into a killing field when militants singled out and shot dead 25 male Hindu tourists in Baisaran, about 7km from town. A local Muslim pony handler who tried to help was also killed.
Within days of the attack, India revoked the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty, while Pakistan responded by withdrawing from the 1972 Simla Agreement on bilateral dispute resolution.
In the weeks that followed, the two countries exchanged missile and drone strikes in a four-day conflict that ended in a fragile truce.
