J&K: From Doda-Udhampur Massacre in 2006 to Pahalgam in 2025: 35 Hindus Killed Then, 25 Now—Targeted for Their Religion

The 22 April 2025 terrorist attack in J&K’s Pahalgam by Pakistan-backed Islamist terrorists, where 26 people were killed-including 25 tourists, is not the first time such blood-soaked hatred has been unleashed against Hindus. These cowards, blinded by religious fanaticism, asked each victim their religion before shooting them in the head at point-blank range. In a display of pure barbarism, they even pulled down trousers of some tourists to identify their religion- a level of depravity that exposed the deep-rooted communal hatred behind the massacre.

 

 

 

 

Jammu and Kashmir has endured such targeted killings since 1989, when Pakistan-sponsored terrorists began the systematic ethnic cleansing of Kashmiri Hindus in the Valley. Over time, this Islamist terror agenda spread to other parts of the state, claiming thousands of innocent Hindu lives. One such horrifying chapter unfolded on the night of 30 April 2006, when 35 Hindus were massacred in Doda and Udhampur districts of Jammu region by Pakistan-backed terrorists.

 

 

In two separate communal attacks on the same night in the neighbouring areas of Jammu and Kashmir, heavily armed terrorists from terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba gunned down innocent Hindu villagers, after establishing their religious identity.

 

 

The ethnic cleansing of Hindus on the same day in two districts of J&K, Doda and Udhampur in the year 2006, was one of the worst in the state since 2000 and also a pre-planned move of Pakistan backed terrorists against the Hindu locals. On 30th April, the 22 victims who lost their lives in the cruel attack in the Thawa village of Doda district included a 3 yr old girl. The cowardly attack was carried out by 10-12 heavily armed terrorists wearing the uniform of the Indian army who first stormed in the village, lined up the villagers in two groups, mostly from shepherd families, and shot them dead. The cold-blooded terrorists pumped bullet after bullet until all victims fell dead. The intensity of the serial strikes was such that the doctor who did a post-mortem examination of the victims too reportedly died of shock in the hospital on seeing the number of bloodstained bodies.

 

 

Shockingly enough, soon after on the same night, a second attack took place in the neighbouring Lalon Galla village of Basantgarh area of Udhampur district where 13 Hindu shepherds were first kidnapped by terrorists and then shot dead brutally. While five bodies were found on the same night, eight were recovered the following day. According to sources, there were 10 survivors of the attack who were left in critical condition. The terrorists, at first, surrounded the village late night and then asked the men from adjacent houses to gather at the village headman’s house. When all the victims came out, the terrorists lined them up and opened fire from point-blank range, they continued to fire until their ammunition was exhausted.

 

 

 

 

According to eyewitnesses, hours before the brutal killing of Hindus began in Lalon Galla village of Basantgarh area in Udhampur, two of the locals named Siraj-ud-Din and his son Rukun-ud-Din were set free by the terrorists after establishing their religious identity, but the other 13 were marched out of their homes and shot dead.

 

 

Those who survived or witnessed the gruesome killings went into a state of shock as the army helicopters came to their rescue. The villagers who were escaped or moved from the area but had failed to save their near and dear ones could recall the horrendous incident as they had eye-witnessed open fires by terrorists that took 34 lives in a day at two close locations, bordering Pakistan.

 

 

Following the massacre, officials maintained that the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which had carried out over a dozen major communal massacres in the Jammu region in past years, most likely executed both attacks with the assistance of another terror group Hizbul-Mujahideen. The then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chief Minister of J&K Ghulam Nabi Azad condemned the killings, which they believed were directed at derailing the peace process.

 

 

While some of the sufferers complained of inadequate security provided to them in the region, others were only left regretting to have lost their closed ones to indefinite hatred and violence that continued based on the religious identity.