In Pakistani-administered Kashmir, security fears grow after Indian attack

In Pakistani-administered Kashmir, security fears grow after Indian attack

In this semiautonomous region, where many see themselves as Kashmiris first, frustration with Pakistan is overshadowed now by fears of further Indian strikes.

Military personnel seen Saturday in the Kotli district of Pakistani-administered Azad Kashmir, an area that was recently attacked by Indian forces amid tensions between the two countries. (Photos by Saiyna Bashir/For The Washington Post)

By Rick Noack

 and 

Haq Nawaz Khan

The Washington Post

KOTLI, Pakistani-administered Kashmir — More than a week after a ceasefire between Pakistan and India brought calm to this disputed borderland, the dead have been buried and much of the rubble cleared in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. But the subtler ways in which the fighting has changed the regional status quo are still emerging.

Some locals took to the streets to celebrate the truce with India as a victory for Islamabad — a rare public expression of Pakistani nationalism in Pakistani-administered Azad Kashmir, a semiautonomous region where many see themselves as Kashmiris first.

Even pro-independence activists here have shifted their tone. Pakistan’s response “during this limited war was widely appreciated,” said Muhammad Rafiq Dar, a spokesman for the Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front, which has long called for the withdrawal of Pakistani soldiers from Kashmir and for a referendum on independence.

Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-majority India administer different parts of Kashmir and have both claimed the region in its entirety since the bloody partition of British India in 1947.

Pakistan sent tribal militias into Kashmir shortly after partition to prevent the region’s Hindu ruler from joining India. When the fighting stopped in 1948, Pakistan controlled roughly a third of the territory and India the rest. India and Pakistan have fought two more wars over Kashmir in the intervening decades; even periods of relative calm have been marked by occasional shelling and persistent mistrust.

The damaged home of Chaudhry Muhammad Rauf in Kotli, after shelling by Indian forces earlier this month.

As in Indian-administered Kashmir, locals here have often chafed at being ruled from afar. Large-scale protests in Azad Kashmir in May 2024 paralyzed the region for nearly a week. Outraged over the rising price of food staples and electricity, demonstrators blocked roads, marched on the regional capital and demanded relief from 

“Young people feel that they don’t have a future,” said Ershad Mahmud, a Kashmiri scholar based in Canada who wrote a recent book on the region’s politics and identity. Many residents rely on remittances from relatives abroad, he said, and complain that they are subject to frequent power cuts, even as Pakistan leverages Kashmir’s abundant water supply for hydropower projects.

Civil activism is curbed by restrictions — all elected officials need to pledge loyalty to Pakistan, which limits the role of pro-independence groups and has deepened frustrations

But in interviews over the past week, residents and politicians said the latest fighting has directed their focus to what they now see as a more existential threat.

“We fear another Indian attack,” said Sardar Usman Attique, a senior member of an influential pro-Pakistan party in Kashmir, the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference. “Like an injured animal, Modi will come back to bite again,” he added, referring to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

At least 31 people in Pakistani-administered Kashmir died in Indian shelling or strikes over four days of conflict, and almost 300 houses were damaged, according to Pakistani authorities. New Delhi said at least 27 people were killed in Indian-administered Kashmir over the same period.

India portrayed the strikes — which were accompanied by an escalation of shelling along both sides of the Line of Control — as retaliation for a deadly rampage by militants last month in a popular tourist area near Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Kashmir. Islamabad has denied any involvement in the attack.

Zafar Iqbal Ghazi, 63, who introduced himself as a social worker in Kotli district, near the border with Indian-administered Kashmir, said the damage in his village and across the region has largely silenced anti-Pakistan sentiments among his friends and neighbors: “95 percent have changed their minds,” he said.

Ghazi spoke to journalists during a press trip organized by Pakistani security officials Saturday. It was unclear how extensively locals were prepared for the visit, or how freely they could speak their minds. Interviews were conducted independently by The Washington Post, and many of the sentiments voiced on the ground were echoed in more than half a dozen additional phone interviews with residents in the area.

Pakistani authorities showed reporters damaged residential buildings and a school. Through a hole in the roof, which officials said was blown open by artillery fire, a poster was visible in an abandoned classroom. “Don’t fight,” it advised students. At times, bystanders saluted the passing convoy of military vehicles.

Sardar Adnan, a 30-year-old mathematics student in Kotli, said he was woken up by loud blasts in his residential part of the city on May 7, the first day of cross-border strikes. “It felt like my house might be next,” he said.

Two teenagers were killed near a mosque that appeared to have been the target, Pakistani officials said. India said its strikes that night targeted militant sites.

Many advocates for independence here said that while they view Pakistan as a necessary counterweight against India, their ultimate goal remains succession from both countries.

The movement is closely watching President Donald Trump, who, in announcing the ceasefire over a week ago, also raised the prospect of U.S.-mediated talks over the status of Kashmir. “I will work with [India and Pakistan] both to see if ... a solution can be arrived at concerning Kashmir,” he wrote in a post on social media.

Trump’s statement brought new hopes for “Kashmiri people who are struggling for the liberation of their motherland,” said Dar, the spokesman for the pro-independence Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front.

So far, however, there is no sign of such talks. While Pakistan has signaled openness to the possibility, India has historically been averse to the involvement of third parties in Kashmir negotiations. Both New Delhi and Islamabad have framed their negotiations over the past week as low-level, technical and focused on upholding the ceasefire.

“The reality is that Kashmir is at the heart of a nuclear-armed triangle of countries: China, Pakistan and India,” said Mozzammil Aslam, a Kashmiri activist who supports Pakistan. “So how could Kashmir ever become a free, independent state?”🔺

By Rick Noack

Rick Noack is The Washington Post's Afghanistan bureau chief. Previously at The Post, he was the Paris correspondent, covering France and Europe, and an international affairs reporter based in Berlin, London and Washington.