Puri said Pakistan was a country in "terminal decline" periodically using terrorism as an instrument of state policy.
A retired school headmaster from Jhalda, West Bengal, mourned the loss of his 33-year-old son, an Intelligence Bureau officer, who was killed in a terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir. The incident sparked outrage and calls for justice as families and political leaders expressed grief and condemned the attack. The victims' families recounted the horrifying details of the attack and praised the courage of a local taxi driver who rescued survivors and provided support.
Pakistan has expressed condolences over the deaths of tourists in a terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, that killed 26 people. The Foreign Office spokesperson said Pakistan is concerned at the loss of tourists' lives and wished the injured a speedy recovery. The attack, claimed by The Resistance Front (TRF), a proxy of the banned Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), is the deadliest in the Valley since the Pulwama strike in 2019.
The Amarnath Yatra has been suspended from Jammu due to inclement weather conditions and no fresh batch was allowed to proceed from Jammu to the base camps of the 3,880-metre-high cave shrine in south Kashmir Himalayas, officials said.
Authorities in Kashmir have launched a massive crackdown on terrorists and their sympathisers in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack, razing homes of the ultras, raiding their safe havens and detaining hundreds of overground workers for questioning, officials said on Saturday.
Kashmir police chief Vijay Kumar has directed personnel to apprehend those responsible for the attack as soon as possible.
In controversial remarks, Maharashtra Congress leader Vijay Wadettiwar on Monday said terrorists have no caste or religion and questioned veracity of the claim that terrorists asked about faith of tourists before killing them in Kashmir's Pahalgam town last week.
Kabir, the son of Col Manpreet Singh, who was killed fighting terrorists in Kashmir, believes his father will return home after receiving the Kirti Chakra. The 10-year-old boy, who lit his father's pyre 19 months ago, clings to the hope that his father is alive and well, despite the reality of his death.
Terrorists blew up a portion of the Anantnag-Baramulla rail track near Galbugh in the south Kashmir Pulwama district late on Thursday night.
The Congress leaders maintained that Indian defence forces had attained complete superiority and dominance over Pakistan before the sudden "ceasefire" was announced by US President Donald Trump.
The launch of the first-ever direct train service from Delhi to Kashmir would be a big turning point in the Valley's mood and its integration with India. He had to thwart it at any cost, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
Curfew in many parts and separatist-sponsored strike disrupted normal life for the 30th straight day on Sunday in Kashmir Valley where violence has so far left 54 persons dead and more than 6000 others injured.
Terrorists struck at two places in Kashmir on Saturday night, killing a former sarpanch in Shopian and injuring a tourist couple from Rajasthan in Anantnag, two days ahead of Lok Sabha elections in Baramulla.
Sheikh Sajjad Gul, the head of Lashkar-e-Taiba proxy The Resistance Front (TRF), has been identified as the mastermind behind the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 people in April. Gul, who is based in Pakistan, has a history of planning terror attacks in Kashmir, including targeted killings, grenade attacks, and ambushes of police personnel. He was designated a terrorist by the NIA in 2022 and a reward of Rs 10 lakh was placed on his head. The TRF claimed responsibility for the Pahalgam attack, where tourists were shot at point-blank range after being asked their religion. Gul's history includes a 2002 arrest in Delhi for planning serial blasts and a subsequent 10-year prison sentence. After his release, he moved to Pakistan and became the leader of the TRF in 2019, a move orchestrated by the ISI to present a facade of an indigenous terror movement in Jammu and Kashmir.
The Congress Working Committee (CWC) condemned the Pahalgam terror attack, calling it a direct assault on the values of the republic. The party accused the BJP of exploiting the tragedy to promote discord and polarization, while urging for unity and solidarity in the face of adversity. The CWC also demanded a comprehensive analysis of the intelligence failures and security lapses that led to the attack.
According to officials, 46 deaths have been recorded in terrorism-related violence since January this year in the twin border districts of Rajouri and Poonch and nearby Reasi district.
Restrictions were imposed in north Kashmir and some areas of central Kashmir to thwart the march announced by separatists to Jamia Masjid.
Late Jammu and Kashmir Police deputy superintendent Humayun Bhat, who died in a 2023 encounter with terrorists, was posthumously awarded the President's Police Medal for Gallantry for his courageous actions during a 2021 gunfight. Bhat was earlier honored with the Kirti Chakra, the nation's second-highest peacetime gallantry award, for his role in neutralizing a top local commander of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and a Pakistani terrorist.
Several Pakistani nationals visiting India started returning home through the Attari-Wagah land route in Amritsar on Thursday, a day after the Centre set a 48-hour deadline for them to leave the country. The decision came after India announced a raft of measures, including the expulsion of Pakistani military attaches, suspension of the Indus Water Treaty of 1960, and the immediate shutting down of the Attari land-transit post in view of the cross-border links to the horrific terror attack in Kashmir's Pahalgam that killed 26 civilians on Tuesday.
Jammu and Kashmir is facing a severe water crisis this year due to a massive rainfall deficit. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah has expressed concern about the situation and called for a proactive approach towards water management and conservation. The state has witnessed an 80% deficit in rainfall this year, raising the possibility of drought in the valley this summer. Several water bodies are flowing below the zero level mark, and some springs in south Kashmir have dried up completely. The water level in Jhelum and other major streams is alarmingly low.
Last week's heavy snowfall seems to have affected electioneering in Kashmir. South Kashmir's Anantnag and the prestigious Srinagar constituencies go to polls on April 24 and April 30 in the five phased Lok Sabha polls in the state.
A Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist returned to India via Nepal and surrendered before police in Anantnag district of south Kashmir on Wednesday after spending two decades in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, police said.
Following a deadly terror attack in Pahalgam, India has ordered all Pakistani nationals to leave the country within 48 hours. This has led to a mass exodus of Pakistani citizens from India, while several women married to Pakistani nationals and holding Indian passports are facing difficulties returning to their families in Pakistan.
With security heightened across the nation on Republic Day, a militant was neutralised at Kokernag in Jammu and Kashmir's Anantnag District on Tuesday.
Militants shot at and critically injured a policeman in south Kashmir's Anantnag town on Friday evening.
In a video circulated on social media, Doval can be heard enquiring about the price, weight and diet of the cattle -- mostly sheep on sale at the market.
Militants shot dead a former militant in south Kashmir's Anantnag district. They also carried out a grenade explosion in north Kashmir's Sopore town on Tuesday evening injuring two persons.
JKLF chairman Mohammad Yasin Malik was arrested on Saturday in Kokernag area of south Kashmir's Anantnag district by the Jammu and Kashmir police and later released in Srinagar.
A turnout of about 59 percent -- the highest in the past seven elections -- was recorded in the first phase of assembly polls in Jammu and Kashmir on Wednesday, Chief Electoral Officer P K Pole said, adding polling passed off peacefully.
In a remarkable display of resilience and commitment to democracy, the residents of villages that had long been deprived of polling due to terrorist threats and separatist-sponsored boycott calls turned out in large numbers to cast ballots in the sixth phase of Lok Sabha polls on Saturday.
PDP president Mehbooba Mufti was on Monday put under house arrest to prevent her from visiting Anantnag to meet the family of a youth who was killed in cross-firing between security forces and militants last week, a party leader claimed.
'If Pakistan has fired one bullet at us then we have to respond by firing 10 bullets at them. It is our right to do so.'
"As the troops moved in, they came under heavy fire from the militants hiding in a house. Reinforcements were immediately rushed to the area and the house was surrounded," a senior police officer said in Srinagar.
Nine migrant Pandit families returned to their south Kashmir native village after 18 long years. Thousands of local Hindus migrated out of the Kashmir valley with the beginning of the ongoing militancy in Kashmir in 1990. The Prime Minister in March announced a relief and rehabilitation package of Rs 7.5 lakhs and a government job for each family returning to the valley.
Umar Ganie captures Amir Hussain Lone, Kashmir's armless cricketer, practicing near his home at Bijbehara in Anantnag district, south Kashmir.
Restrictions on the assembly of people will remain in force to maintain law and order.
On May 18, 2024 night, terrorists struck at two places in Kashmir killing a former sarpanch, Aijaz Sheikh in Shopian and injuring a tourist couple from Rajasthan in Anantnag.
