News
April 25, 2025
Protests in Pakistan, India after Attack
Lahore: Hundreds of Pakistanis joined protests across the country, including Kashmir, on Thursday, to demonstrate against Indian threats following the Pahalgam attack.
“If India wants to go to war, then come forward openly,” businessman Ajmal Baloch told AFP at a protest called by a religiopolitical party and attended by around 700 people in Lahore.
However, protesters, including Baloch, raged against the “unacceptable” threat.
“Water is our right and, God willing, we will reclaim it, even if that means through war. We will not back down,” 25-year-old Muhammad Owais said.
Around 300 people brandishing placards carrying anti-India slogans marched through the city of Muzaffarabad in Azad Kashmir.
“If India makes the mistake of attacking, the Pakistani Kashmiris will fight on the frontline, we’re ready to die for Pakistan,” said Shoukat Javed Mir, a senior PPP leader of the region.
In Quetta, around 150 people staged a protest.
In a related development, supporters of political party Pakistan Markazi Muslim League (PMML) took to the streets in Islamabad and Lahore in protest against India’s suspension of the IWT.
Placards read India’s suspension of the treaty was “cruelty and crime”. Other banners described it as a “declaration of war”.
Separately, dozens of protesters gathered outside the Pakistan Embassy in New Delhi’s diplomatic enclave Thursday, shouting slogans and pushing against police barricades.
A day earlier, India’s Defense Minister Rajnath Singh vowed a swift response to those who carried out and planned the Pahalgam attack.
“Those responsible and behind such an act will very soon hear our response, loud and clear,” Singh said in a speech in New Delhi, a day after the attack.
“We won’t just reach those people who carried out the attack. We will also reach out to those who planned this from behind the scenes on our land.” Singh did not identify those he believes are responsible for the killings but said that “India’s government will take every step that may be necessary and appropriate”.
A hospital list verified by police recorded 26 men who were killed on Tuesday afternoon, when gunmen burst out of forests at a popular tourist spot in Pahalgam, and raked crowds of visitors with automatic weapons. All those killed were listed as residents of India, except one man from Nepal.
Separately, an encounter was reportedly underway between Indian security forces and suspected militants in the Tangmarg area abutting Pahalgam, at the time of going to press.
In a separate incident in Baramulla on Wednesday, the army killed two people after a “heavy exchange of fire”, saying the gunmen were part of an “infiltration bid”, AFP reported.
Courtesy AFP
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