Terror strikes Pahalgam again: How the 1995 abductions brought world's attention to Kashmir

Indian security officers stand guard near Pahalgam after the terrorist attack on Tuesday. PTI)

Tuesday's ghastly terror attack on civilians in Jammu and Kashmir's picturesque town of Pahalgam, killing at least 26 people and leaving several others injured, has triggered nationwide outrage in India against Pakistan and the terror activities it sponsors. As the hunt for the perpetrators of the attack believed to be 4-6 in number continues, the attack also brings back memories of targeted killing of civilians over the past three decades in the Kashmir valley.

Pahalgam, which means “valley of shepherds” in Kashmiri, is one of the most visited tourist destinations in the region, located about 50km from the capital city of Srinagar. The attack occurred in the Baisaran meadows which is one of the most frequented tourist spots in south Kashmir.

The attack on Tuesday has been termed the deadliest against civilians since the killing of 28 Amarnath Yatra pilgrims in July 1998 and the targeted killing of 36 persons from the Sikh community in March 2000 on the eve of US President Bill Clinton's visit to India.

But this isn't the first time that Pahalgam has found itself in the crosshairs. On July 4, 1995, six foreign nationals and two guides were abducted from Pahalgam. The six victims included two British tourists, Keith Mangan and Paul Wells; two Americans, John Childs of Simsbury, Connecticut, and Donald Hutchings of Spokane, Washington; German national Dirk Hasert and Norwegian Hans Christian Ostro.

"Accept our demands or face dire consequences. We are fighting against anti-Islamic forces. Western countries are anti-Islam, and America is the biggest enemy of Islam," a note released by the kidnappers a day after the kidnappings read, according to a report by The New York Times.

The abductions were carried out by a group of 40 militants from the Pakistan-based Islamist militant organisation Harkat-ul-Ansar, also known as Al-Faran, to secure the release of their leader Masood Azhar and 20 other militants.

John Childs, one of the American hostages, managed to escape from the kidnappers and was rescued by security forces four days later. A month later, on August 13, 1995, the body of Hans Christian Ostro of Norway, was found beheaded with a deep carving of "al-Faran" engraved on his chest. A note written in Urdu was found in the decapitated Ostro's shirt pocket.

"We have killed the hostage because the Government has failed to accept our demands," the note said. "In 48 hours, if our demands are not met, the other hostages will meet the same fate."

The bodies of the other abducted were never found and were presumed dead with the Jammu and Kashmir government issuing their death certificates in January 2003.

The attack against foreign nationals eventually drew global attention to the Islamist insurgency in Kashmir. Appeals by several national and international organisations to Al-Faran and frequent visits by representatives of the embassies of the victims' countries to Kashmir to seek the release of the hostages went in vain.

There are differing theories around the exact fate of the remaining hostages abducted by Harkat. In May 1996, a captured militant told Indian investigators and FBI agents that he had heard that all four hostages had been shot dead on December 13, 1995, nine days after an operation by Indian security forces that killed four of the original hostage-takers, including the man said to have been leading them, Abdul Hamid Turki.

However, in their book titled 'The Meadow', journalists Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark claimed that the remaining hostages were sold from Al-Faran to Ghulam Nabi Mir, also known as Azad Nabi, who held them for months before shooting them dead on December 2, 1995.

Masood Azhar was subsequently released in exchange for passengers aboard hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814 along with Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was arrested in 2002 and later tried and convicted for the kidnapping and beheading of Daniel Pearl in Karachi, Pakistan. Amjad Farooqi, accused of being one of the kidnappers, was reported killed in Pakistan in September 2004.