Muslim League state president Panakkad Sadiqali Shihab Thangal has expressed that the recent terror attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir, targeted only the region’s growing tourism sector. He made this remark as news emerged that the terrorists had identified and killed people based on their religion.
“The tourism sector has recovered after the Covid pandemic. It is a matter of concern that such incidents are being seen as damaging the image of Indian tourism as a whole,” Thangal said. He emphasised that ‘terrorism has nothing to do with religion and that extremists only misuse religion for violence”. He also called for more security for the people of Kashmir to prevent such attacks in the future.
The national general secretary of the Muslim League, P K Kunjhalikutty, backed Thangal’s views. He said,”religion was being misused by the criminals and it has no connection with religion”. Meanwhile, in a Facebook post, Muslim League working committee member Basheer Vallikoth alleged that the Sangh Parivar is behind such terrorist acts in northern India. According to him, Sangh Parivar orchestrated these actions, including the 26/11 attack, intended to provoke the Hindu community and rally support for the BJP.
It should also be noted that the Muslim League has not criticised Pakistan or rejected terrorism as clearly as Congress President Rahul Gandhi has done. The party’s response also echoed the language of Qatar-based media outlet Al Jazeera, which labelled the terrorists as “suspected rebels”.
However, Thangal’s view that terrorism has no religion, however, has raised the question of whether certain religious interpretations or hostility towards other faiths contribute to extremist violence. The attack was carried out by The Resistance Front (TRF), a militant group formed in 2019 and linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is internationally classified as an Islamic terrorist organisation. The name Lashkar-e-Taiba itself is derived from Arabic and Urdu – ‘Lashkar’ means army or military force in Urdu and ‘Taiba’ means pure or good in Arabic. Literally translated, it means ‘army of the pure’. The group uses Islamic religious terminology to construct its identity and claims to act in defence of Islam and to establish a global Islamic state and governance. However, their violent actions, including deadly terrorist attacks. In this context, it is unfortunate that the IUML characterises the attacks as an act against the tourism sector and disregards the religious elements.
Moreover, eyewitness accounts confirm that the attack specifically targeted non-Muslim tourists. According to PTI, Pune businessman Santosh Jagdale, 54, was asked to come out of his tent and recite an Islamic verse. When he couldn’t, he was shot three times—in the head, behind the ear, and in the back—his daughter Asavari Jagdale reported. After he fell, the gunmen turned on her uncle and shot him multiple times in the back. Another woman stated that terrorists first asked for the names of the victims before opening fire.
The deadliest Islamic terrorist attack in Kashmir occurred on April 22 at Baisaran meadow near Pahalgam in Anantnag district of J&K. Militants opened fire on a group of Hindu tourists, killing 26 people and injuring more than 20 others.
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