{"id":46168,"date":"2025-04-24T08:48:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-24T08:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/46168\/"},"modified":"2025-04-24T08:48:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T08:48:11","slug":"pahalgam-terror-attack-hindu-america-foundation-slams-western-media-for-whitewashing-terror-attack-on-hindus-world-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/46168\/","title":{"rendered":"Pahalgam Terror Attack: Hindu America Foundation slams Western media for ‘whitewashing terror attack’ on Hindus | World News"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"'India,
The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) has sharply condemned what it calls a \u201cshameful and deliberate erasure\u201d by major Western media outlets in the aftermath of the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam, Kashmir, where 26 Hindu tourists were executed in cold blood by terrorists affiliated with The Resistance Front\u2014a Lashkar-e-Taiba proxy backed by Pakistan.
\u201cLet\u2019s get this straight,\u201d said Suhag Shukla, Executive Director of the Hindu American Foundation, in a scathing rebuke of international media coverage following the April 22, 2025, terror attack in Pahalgam. \u201cTerrorists from the Resistance Front, a Lashkar-e-Taiba offshoot, took credit for storming a meadow in Pahalgam and murdering at least 26 tourists, seeking out Hindus with chilling precision, in the worst civilian massacre in Kashmir since 2008.\u201d
According to Shukla, the headlines should have written themselves: Hindus massacred in Kashmir by Islamists in a terror attack claimed by a Pakistan-backed group. But instead, Western media outlets like The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, BBC, Reuters, and AP delivered \u201canother masterclass in whitewashing, gaslighting, false equivalencies, and revisionist history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poll<\/p>\n

Do you believe that the international media’s coverage of the Pahalgam terror attack has been adequate?<\/p>\n

\u201cAcross the board, you\u2019ll see patronising sneer quotes around \u2018terror attack\u2019 and sanitised references to the killers as militants,\u201d she said. \u201cSome even have the gall to call them rebels. For the record: a rebel fights authority, a militant targets the state, and a terrorist deliberately targets and kills civilians to spread fear for ideological or religious aims.\u201d
Shukla citing survivor accounts to highlight the ideological nature of the killings. \u201cTerrorists demanded victims identify their religion\u2014forcing them to show IDs or recite the Kalma\u2014and murdered them if they were Hindu. They deliberately spared their wives and children to report the message of hate.\u201d
What especially enraged Shukla was the BBC\u2019s description of the victims as \u201cnon-Muslims.\u201d \u201cThe intent here is as clear as it is old: target, murder, and terrorise Hindus for an ideological and religious war. Please spare us the neutral terms and erasure.\u201d
For Shukla, the Pahalgam massacre fits into a broader pattern of anti-Hindu violence in Kashmir\u2014one that media outlets routinely downplay or ignore. \u201cAttacks on Hindus in Kashmir by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists are neither rare nor random,\u201d she said, referencing the ethnic cleansing of over 350,000 Kashmiri Pandits in the late \u201980s and \u201990s and the deaths of Hindu pilgrims at sites like Amarnath and Vaishno Devi since 2000.
Shukla also pointed out the legal discrimination Kashmiri Hindus faced before Article 370 was revoked in 2019. \u201cBefore then, indigenous Hindu Pandits\u2014already ethnically cleansed\u2014were legally barred from reclaiming property. Kashmiri women couldn\u2019t pass property to their children if they married outsiders. Indians from outside the region couldn\u2019t settle there. And yet AP and Reuters describe those seeking to return as \u2018outsiders\u2019? Would they call a Californian moving to Pennsylvania an immigrant?\u201d
Citing the operational ties between Lashkar-e-Taiba and The Resistance Front, she reminded audiences that this was not rogue violence. \u201cPakistan\u2019s intelligence agency bankrolls, trains and directs them. TRF\u2019s Falcon Squad is trained in L.E.T. camps in Pakistan. Their propaganda machine runs on L.E.T. networks\u2014all to push Islamabad\u2019s anti-Indian, anti-Hindu agenda.\u201d
Shukla pointed out in a final indictment, \u201cLegacy media\u2019s whitewashing and spin don\u2019t just insult the victims. It enables the very forces behind these atrocities. If you can\u2019t call out terror for what it is, maybe you shouldn\u2019t be reporting on it at all.\u201d
Global Reactions
International condemnation poured in after the April 22, 2025, massacre in Pahalgam, where 26 Hindu tourists were executed by terrorists from The Resistance Front. Leaders across the globe strongly denounced the attack, with many expressing solidarity with India and the victims\u2019 families.
US President Donald Trump<\/a> called the incident \u201can act of savage hatred\u201d and declared, \u201cThe United States stands strong with India against terrorism. Prime Minister Modi, and the people of India, have our full support and deepest sympathies.\u201d
US Vice President JD Vance, who was in India at the time of the attack, issued a somber statement describing the massacre as \u201can unspeakable atrocity.\u201d He added that the terrorists\u2019 deliberate targeting of Hindus was \u201ca reminder that religious persecution remains one of the gravest threats to global peace.\u201d
From Capitol Hill, members of the Congressional Hindu Caucus condemned both the attack and the lack of clarity in international media reporting. Representative Tulsi Kapoor stated, \u201cThis isn\u2019t just a terror attack\u2014it\u2019s an anti-Hindu hate crime. The world must call it by its name.\u201d
The House Foreign Affairs Committee Majority took direct aim at Western media coverage, particularly The New York Times, saying: \u201cHey, @nytimes, we fixed it for you. This was a TERRORIST ATTACK, plain and simple. Whether it\u2019s India or Israel, when it comes to TERRORISM, the NYT is removed from reality.\u201d
In an unexpected move, even the Taliban condemned the killings. A spokesperson called the attack on civilians \u201cun-Islamic\u201d and said that deliberately targeting innocent tourists based on religion was \u201cnot permissible under any circumstance.\u201d
Around the world, leaders echoed similar sentiments. French President Emmanuel Macron labelled it a \u201cheinous act of terror.\u201d British Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the killings as \u201can attack on humanity.\u201d German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called it a \u201ccowardly act,\u201d while Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said, \u201cTerrorism that targets faith has no place in our world.\u201d
Leaders from China, Australia, Nepal, and the European Union also issued statements condemning the massacre, with many affirming their commitment to counter-terrorism cooperation with India.
India’s Response
In India, the attack has triggered both national mourning and geopolitical consequences. Prime Minister Narendra Modi<\/a> condemned the massacre as \u201ca crime against humanity\u201d and vowed a \u201cstrong and measured response.\u201d
The Ministry of External Affairs summoned Pakistan\u2019s envoy and suspended cooperation under the Indus Waters Treaty\u2014India\u2019s most significant diplomatic weapon against Islamabad short of war. Home Minister Amit Shah chaired an emergency security review and pledged to intensify counter-terror operations in Kashmir.
Read: Must-read stories from TOI<\/a>
A Trail of Horror: Eyewitness Accounts
The attack in the picturesque meadow of Baisaran, 5km from Pahalgam, has become one of the bloodiest civilian massacres in Jammu & Kashmir in over a decade. Survivor testimonies reveal a grim pattern: names, religious symbols, and even dietary choices became markers for death.
Florida-based techie Bitan Adhikary was gunned down in front of his family when he couldn\u2019t “prove” he was Muslim. His widow, Sohini Adhikary, said their vacation turned into a nightmare of gunfire and screams.
Another victim, Bengaluru techie Bharath Bhushan, was executed after simply stating his name. \u201cMy name is Bharath,\u201d he told the attackers. That was enough.
Assam professor Debasish Bhattacharya, whose academic fluency in Islamic scripture saved his life, recalled: \u201cOverwhelmed by fear, I began chanting the kalma. After a few moments, the gunman lowered his weapon and we escaped through the forest.\u201d
In other cases, sheer chance played saviour. A Kerala family delayed their trip due to a salty lunch and missed the ambush entirely. Landslides, horse delays, and missed flights spared dozens of others. One couple, newly married and denied a Swiss visa, chose Kashmir for their honeymoon\u2014only for Himanshi to return alone, dazed and bloodied beside the corpse of her husband Lt Vinay Narwal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hindu American Foundation (HAF) has sharply condemned what it calls a \u201cshameful and deliberate erasure\u201d by major…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46169,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[32,25392,22817,25391,24067,25390,25389,49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-46168","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-hindu-america-foundation","10":"tag-narendra-modi","11":"tag-pahalgam","12":"tag-pahalgam-terror-attack","13":"tag-resistance-front","14":"tag-suhag-shukla","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114392079073225217","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}