NEW DELHI: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed on Thursday (Apr 24) to punish all those responsible for a gruesome attack in Kashmir that killed 26 men.
“I say to the whole world: India will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backer,” he said in his first speech since Tuesday’s attack in the Himalayan region.
“We will pursue them to the ends of the Earth”.
The shooting in the tourist hotpot of Pahalgam was the deadliest attack on civilians in the contested Muslim-majority territory since 2000.
Of the men killed, 26 were Indian and one was Nepali.
India accused Islamabad on Wednesday of supporting “cross-border terrorism” and downgraded ties with its neighbour with a raft of diplomatic measures.
This includes the suspension of a six-decade-old river-sharing treaty, which a Pakistan government minister called an act of “water warfare”.
“India’s reckless suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty is an act of water warfare; a cowardly, illegal move,” Pakistan’s Power Minister Awais Lekhari said in a post on X late on Wednesday night.
The Indus water treaty, mediated by the World Bank and signed in 1960, split the Indus River and its tributaries between the neighbours and regulated the sharing of water. It has withstood two wars between the neighbours since then and severe strains in ties at other times.
Pakistan has denied any role in the Pahalgam attack.
