Deadly assault in Kashmir marks 1st since 2025 tourist attack
An Indian police officer frisks a man during a search operation, Srinagar, Indian Kashmir, Aug. 1, 2026. (EPA Photo)


At least one person was killed Friday in Indian-administered Kashmir, authorities said, marking the first militant attack in the disputed region since April 2025.

In April last year, gunmen killed 26 people, most of them Hindu tourists, in the resort town of Pahalgam.

The attack sparked an intense four-day conflict between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan after New Delhi accused Islamabad of supporting the assailants, an allegation Pakistan denied.

"I spoke with top security officials following the brutal terrorist attack in which a laborer from Chhattisgarh was killed," Manoj Sinha, the region's top administrator, said on X.

Another laborer injured in the attack was rushed to a hospital.

"I strongly condemn this cowardly act," Sinha added. "I have directed our security forces to step up their operations and eliminate the terrorists."

Authorities did not immediately say how many attackers were involved, but Friday's incident came only days after a gunman killed a local police officer.

Earlier this month, New Delhi filed charges against the founder of a Pakistan-based militant group in connection with the deadly attack in Pahalgam.

India's National Investigation Agency said it had charged Hafiz Saeed in "his individual capacity and also as the chief of the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba terror outfit and its active proxy organisation, The Resistance Front."

The United Nations sanctioned Lashkar-e-Taiba in 2005 over its links to al-Qaida and the Taliban, and the United States added Saeed to its global terrorism list in 2008.

Last year's Pahalgam attack triggered a series of tit-for-tat diplomatic measures that spiraled into intense exchanges of missile, drone and artillery fire between India and Pakistan. The conflict left more than 70 people dead on both sides.

Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since they gained independence from British rule in 1947.

Both countries claim the region in its entirety and have fought multiple wars over its control.