HYDERABAD: An Intelligence Bureau officer posted in Hyderabad was among those killed in Tuesday’s terrorist attack in Pahalgam while on vacation with his family.
IB sources said Manish Ranjan, originally from Bihar, was killed in front of his family. Ranjan was on leave and had taken his wife and children to Kashmir for a summer holiday. He left for Kashmir Sunday on a leave travel concession (LTC) trip.
Initial reports suggest his wife and children are safe, though officials are still verifying their status. Ranjan had served in the ministerial section of the IB’s Hyderabad office for the past two years and lived in official residential quarters in the city.
28 tourists killed
At least 28 tourists lost their lives and several others were injured on Tuesday after terrorists opened fire in a scenic meadow near Pahalgam, a popular tourist destination in Jammu and Kashmir. The incident is the deadliest since the scrapping of Article 370 in 2019. The Resistance Front, a known proxy of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba and backed by the ISI, claimed responsibility for the assault.
The timing of the attack appeared calculated—it took place during US Vice President JD Vance’s ongoing four-day trip to India and on the same day Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in Saudi Arabia to bolster diplomatic ties with the influential Gulf nation. Just prior to the attack, Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir had delivered a provocative speech, underscoring the military’s continuing role in backing cross-border terrorism.
This was the worst terror strike targeting tourists in Kashmir since the 1990s insurgency began, evoking grim memories of the Chittisinghpora massacre in March 2000, when 36 Sikhs were gunned down just days before then-US President Bill Clinton’s visit to India. The timing and execution of the latest attack appear to align with Pakistan’s recurring strategy of internationalising the Kashmir dispute by portraying it as a potential flashpoint for a nuclear standoff between India and Pakistan.