Tourists Don’t Come Back from Warzones: Kashmir, 2025

They came for the views. For the snow. For the silence.

Twenty-six of them left in body bags.

Pahalgam, Kashmir. April 22nd, 2025. A van full of Indian tourists turned into a bullet-riddled cage. Shot tires. Shattered glass. Blood smeared across hill roads where kids usually pose with ponies.

The world kept scrolling.

The attack was clean. Precise. Six men. Black scarves. Kalashnikovs. According to Indian intelligence, the men crossed from the Pakistani side days earlier. Jaish-e-Mohammed fingerprints all over it. Pakistan denies. Again. India responds. Again.

They’re calling it Operation Sindhoor.

Airstrikes. Drones. Surgical elimination. Abdul Rauf Azhar, a name you don’t know, gone in smoke. Modi says it’s justice. Sharif calls it political theatre. The West says “de-escalate.” Everyone else? Silent.

Tourism dies fast when bullets fly.

A girl in a lilac hoodie was pulled from under a seat. She was still holding her phone. Her last photo? A selfie with her boyfriend, both of them in black shades, laughing. One bullet later, only one of them still exists.

We look at Kashmir like it's a postcard. They live it like it’s a roulette wheel.

This isn’t just a “border clash.” This is generational grief. Cultural tension dressed as nationalism. A war zone repackaged in reels and flags and drone footage.

You don’t need to pick a side. The war will find you either way.

Even in a tourist van.

Even in sunglasses.

Even when you’re just trying to live.