Published On 26 Apr 2025
Pakistan has called for a “neutral” investigation into the killings of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir that New Delhi has blamed on Islamabad, saying it was willing to cooperate and favoured peace.
India has identified two of the three suspected attackers as Pakistani, though Islamabad has denied any role in the attack on Tuesday that killed 25 Indians and one Nepali national.
“Pakistan is fully prepared to cooperate with any neutral investigators to ensure that the truth is uncovered and justice is served,” said Pakistan’s interior minister, Mohsin Naqvi, on Saturday.
“Pakistan remains committed to peace, stability and the following of international norms but will not compromise on its sovereignty,” he told a news conference.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said, “The recent tragedy in Pahalgam is yet another example of this perpetual blame game, which must come to a grinding halt.”
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has pledged to pursue the attackers to “the ends of the earth” and said that those who planned and carried it out “will be punished beyond their imagination”.
Meanwhile, calls continue to grow from Indian politicians and others for military retaliation against Pakistan.
After the attack, India and Pakistan unleashed a host of measures against each other, with Pakistan closing its airspace to Indian airlines, and India suspending the 1960 Indus Waters Treaty that regulates water-sharing from the Indus River and its tributaries.
The two sides, who both fully claim Kashmir while partly governing it, have also exchanged fire across their de facto border for two straight days after four years of relative calm.
The Indian Army said it had responded to “unprovoked” small arms fire from multiple Pakistan Army posts that started around midnight on Friday along the 740km (460-mile) de facto border separating the Indian and Pakistani areas of Kashmir. It reported no casualties.
Pakistan’s military has not yet commented on the exchange of fire.
Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani diplomat, told Al Jazeera that