After 26 people, most of them tourists, were killed last week in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir, India’s government called the massacre a terrorist attack and cited “cross-border linkages” to Pakistan.
A group calling itself the Resistance Front emerged on social media to say it was behind the slaughter. Indian officials privately say the group is a proxy for Lashkar-e-Taiba, a terrorist organization based in Pakistan.
But India, citing national security concerns, has publicly provided little evidence linking the attack to Pakistan, which denies involvement and says that Lashkar-e-Taiba is largely inoperative. Pakistan has also called for an international investigation into the episode.
As India has appeared to make a case for conducting a military strike on Pakistan in retaliation for the Kashmir attack, it has pointed to what it calls Pakistan’s past pattern of support for militant groups targeting India.
Here’s what you need to know:
- What are the origins of the dispute?
- How has Pakistan supported militancy?
- What evidence has India presented?
- What is happening today?
What are the origins of the dispute?
The roots of the Kashmir conflict trace back to the 1947 partition of British India, which led to the creation of a predominantly Hindu India and a predominantly Muslim Pakistan.