India has demolished at least ten homes over the last week belonging to suspected rebels in the region after 26 people were killed in an attack in Pahalgam, Indian-controlled Kashmir, in April.
The ongoing demolitions have sparked anger with locals, who call the punishment an “Israeli tactic”.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a meeting with the military’s top brass in New Delhi, gave India’s armed forces “complete operational freedom.”
While that has sparked global fears of an armed conflict between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India, in Kashmir it has meant that the armed forces have subjected locals to a spree of arrests, raids, and home demolitions, sparking anger, fear and uncertainty.
One of the houses razed to the ground with explosives on the evening of 24 April belonged to 23-year-old Ehsan Ul Sheikh, a suspected rebel who left his home in 2023 and has since allegedly joined the Pakistan-based armed group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
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Indian authorities believe LeT is behind the Pahalgam attack, although initially a smaller group named the Resistance Front first took responsibility, then shortly later disavowed itself from the attack, saying it had no involvement.
“This was not just a home, but our father’s life-long devotion,” Sheikh’s sister told Middle East Eye as she stood by the rubble of what used to be her home in Murran village of Pulwama district in the southern part of the region.
Sheikh was in his early 20s when he went missing two years ago, never to return, his family said.
The villagers wailed and sobbed near the rubble of the houses destroyed on 24 April.
“It was dark when the Indian armed forces cordoned off the village in large numbers and directed us to leave our houses,” Ashiq Ahmad, a villager, told MEE.
“After some time, the earth beneath our feet shook,” Ashiq said, describing the explosion they heard from a mosque some distance away, where locals had been forcibly held for hours.
“When we came out after two hours, we found many houses destroyed and razed to the ground,” he said. “We were mourning the whole night.”
It was not only the home of the suspected rebel that was damaged, but 14 other houses in the neighbourhood faced significant damage.
“This house was built after I put together my blood and sweat, but now it’s gone,” Ali Muhammad told MEE, adding that his son’s wedding was in ten days.
“We just happened to be neighbours. They claim (forces) that our neighbours were at fault because of their son. But what was our fault and who will question them?” he said on the verge of tears.
Heavy-handed
Srinagar, the summer capital of India-controlled Kashmir, was previously abuzz with thousands of visitors before the 22 April attack and now lies in a deceptive state of calm. Nighttime traffic has all but disappeared. Thousands of tourists who were on holiday in the region have left, and new bookings have mostly been cancelled.
Kashmiris have also come out in protest against the killings.
‘Indian officials are collectively punishing Kashmiris for the state’s failures’
– Mohammad Junaid, professor
The attack on tourists has led to a heavy-handed response from Indian forces. As part of the fresh crackdown, the police have detained over 2,000 people, some of whom had cases filed against them in the past, or are linked to suspected rebels.
Nearly 1,000 houses have been searched so far, and the raids continue.
“Indian officials are collectively punishing Kashmiris for the state’s failures, and contradicting their court rulings against demolishing homes of people,” Mohamad Junaid, an assistant professor of anthropology at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, told MEE.
Junaid is referring to a November 2024 ruling from India’s Supreme Court that bans what had popularly become known as “bulldozer justice”, where judges declared that authorities cannot demolish homes based on an accusation of a crime.
“Kashmiris are being told that their rights depend on the whims of the regime in power in Delhi. They spend a lifetime building their houses, and it seems to me that it irritates Indian bureaucrats that Kashmiris are not desperate or grovelling in front of them,” Junaid said.
‘What was our fault?’
Shazada Bano, 59, shivers and wails as she sifts through the ruins of her home. Burnt bedding, charred curtains, and blackened utensils lie scattered, all that’s left of her home after it was destroyed.
Bano is the mother of Adil Thoker, a suspected rebel from Guree Bijbehara village in Anantnag, who, according to Indian forces, is one of the suspects in the Pahalgam attack. His was the first house to be razed.
“What was our fault? If he did it, go punish him. He left home in 2018, we don’t know whether he is dead or alive or where he is,” she says, adding she was also detained for a night for interrogation.
Four nearby houses suffered damage from the explosion.
More than 74 miles away, in the frontier border town of Kupwara, Muhammad Yaqoob Teedwa is in shock. He has little hope of justice. A resident of Kalroosa village, his brother Farooq Teedwa left for Pakistan in the 1990s for armed training. His home was also demolished by the armed forces.
“He left 30 years ago. Why is the government punishing us now? I am a poor labourer, what was the fault of my children who have been left roofless,” he asks.
In Naaz Colony, Bandipora, the family of suspected rebel Jameel Ahmad Gojri stood silently on their lawn, surrounded by the smouldering ruins of what was once their home.
“We don’t want to talk. What will we say? Who will listen and who will be held responsible?” one of the family members told MEE as he refused to comment any further on the demolition of their two-story house.
What happened on 22 April?
On 22 April, suspected rebels emerged from the forests in Baisaran Valley, a vast meadow in the tourist resort of Pahalgam. They are then reported to have opened indiscriminate fire on the tourists, killing 26 of them and wounding 17. The meadow is only accessible through horseback or on foot, one reason why authorities may have been delayed in their rescue efforts.
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In the aftermath of the attack, a war-like situation has arisen between India and Pakistan. India blames Pakistan for the attack, but Pakistan has denied the charge.
A lesser-known armed group, the Resistance Front (TRF), had initially claimed responsibility for the attack and linked it to the thousands of residency permits being handed over to non-locals, facilitating their settlement in the region. Up until August 2019, India-controlled Kashmir had semi-autonomous status, which didn’t allow for such permits.
Tourism contributes only seven percent to the region’s economy, but the ruling government has been aiming to increase the region’s dependency on it and uses it as a tool to project a sense of normalcy in the region after stripping it of its special status.
The government recently said that 3.5 million tourists visited the region in 2024.
Tensions in the region are spiking as lines of Indian military vehicles increase and head toward northern Kashmir and the Line of Control (LoC). It feels like being in a war zone, even though no official declaration of war has been made, but low-intensity skirmishes continue on the border.
The authorities in Kashmir have closed 48 tourist spots across the region as a security measure.
‘A helpless voice’
India has received unmitigated support from western leaders as they rushed to condemn the attack, which, a lot of observers believe, may have encouraged India to lean harder on Kashmiris.
Many far-right Hindu nationalists on social media have called for the Pahalgam attack to be “avenged,” and some called for an “Israel-style” treatment, including “flattening” the homes of Kashmiri Muslims.
The locals fear that the government will continue to punish common people.
“In this landlocked valley, where people are deeply rooted in their soil, owning a home is almost instinctual, just as a camel is born with a hump, a Kashmiri is born with a house. To see these homes reduced to rubble in blasts is to witness lives collapsing alongside them,” Munir Ahmad, a resident of Shopian village where a house of another suspected rebel, Adnan Shafi Dar, was demolished, said.
“Bulldozing a house here is not just demolition, it is the erasure of dreams, decades of investment, and burying of lives.”
Ahmad feared that today they are demolishing houses of militants, but says “tomorrow they will target their sympathisers and then the entire population.”
“It is an Israeli copybook style to punish the entire population. The silence of the international community to what is happening in Gaza has emboldened the government,” he added.
Hafsa Kanjwal, author of the book Colonising Kashmir, said that home demolitions have been occurring in India-controlled Kashmir against people suspected of joining resistance groups.
“The demolitions are a war crime given that the right to adequate housing is enshrined in international law,” Kanjwal told MEE.
“It is a clear tactic by the Indian state to use the attack as a pretext to escalate the repression of Kashmiris. The spectacle of a home demolition also serves as a warning to the people of Kashmir that this is what could happen to them too if they resist. The state will not only go after them, but also their homes and families. It’s also important to note that this is a tactic the Israeli government has been using against Palestinians for many years.”
Shameema, whose house was partially damaged in the demolition in Pulwama, said that the government has all the authority, men, and machinery to act against those who killed tourists.
“The government has everything at their disposal, the technology, surveillance, army, bulldozers, weapons, power and the world at their back. What do we have? A helpless voice.”
