Kashmir: how a mountain paradise became a nuclear tinderbox

Once famed for its beauty, the region has been scarred by decades of war between Pakistan and India – peace is as fragile as ever, says

- Andrew Whitehead

For a land of fabled beauty, Kashmir has been repeatedly disfigured by massacres, killings, protests and clampdowns. India and Pakistan have been feuding over who governs Kashmir ever since they gained independence from Britain in 1947. An anti-India insurgency – encouraged by Pakistan but fuelled by local grievances - has claimed, by a conservative estimate, 50,000 lives since its inception in 1989.

But even by Kashmir's blood-stained standards, the attack last month in a mountain meadow above the resort town of Pahalgam was deeply shocking. Twenty-five tourists, almost all Indian, and a Kashmiri, were gunned down. The attackers are said to have shot those men who couldn't recite a Muslim prayer; several were slaughtered in front of their wives.

India hasn't made public the evidence that, in its view, implicates its neighbour in this massacre - an allegation angrily repudiated by Pakistan. But the forceful military response has, for the first time in half a century, included targets in the Pakistani heartland of Punjab and in Pakistan Kashmir. Among those to endorse India's action is the former UK prime minister Rishi Sunak, who said "no nation should have to accept terrorist attacks being launched against it from land controlled by another country".

Pakistan claimed to have shot down several Indian military planes. There's also been an upsurge of artillery fire both ways across the ceasefire line in Kashmir as well as drone attacks well beyond Kashmir. Most alarmingly, both countries have reported multiple missile attacks on air bases. What initially seemed a limited military action is escalating rapidly and in an unpredictable manner. China, Pakistan's principal ally, has urged restraint, a call echoed by G7 foreign ministers.

The world will be watching to see how well the ceasefire, announced yesterday, beds down.