Experts Say Pahalgam Attack Points to a Desperate Shift in Strategy

EX-J&K Top Cop Says the Attack Will Hit Tourism as People Will Cancel Their Bookings, Hotels Will Be Empty

- Prawesh Lama

NEW DELHI: Security experts, including several who have worked in Jammu & Kashmir, said that Tuesday's attack on tourists, all unarmed civilians, by a known front of Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) signals a desperate move by Islamabad to destabilise the economy in the Valley.

Former chief of J&K police, SP Vaid, said the purported owning of the attack by TRF (The Resistance Front) is an eyewash because the attack is the handiwork of LeT.

"The local terrorists are wary of attacking tourists. They know the impact that it will have on the place. It is a no-brainer that this is the work of foreign terrorists, who were sent by their handlers in Pakistan," he said.