Terrorist Organisations Involved in Pahalgam Attack 2025

Brief History of Instability in Kashmir

Image Source Wikipedia — Depiction of Kashmir Region in Detail

Terrorist organisations involved in Pahalgam attack of 2025 were include terrorists from different organisations, but we need to understand first the brief history of terrorist attacks in Kashmir.

After independence, Kashmir became a hotspot between India and Pakistan. Pakistan, since its origin illegally claims that Kashmir belongs to them but legally Kashmir belongs to India and its an integral part of India. In 1947, Pakistan illicitly captured some part of Kashmir and called it Azad Kashmir but that piece of land was named Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) by the Indian side. Since then Kashmir has been a hotspot between both the nations. India and Pakistan had 3 wars after 1947, that was in 1965, 1971 and 1999 respectively but Pakistan lost all the wars against India. Now, Pakistan uses dirty tactics to create instability in India by killing innocent people at various occasions and events, from time to time by using terrorism. After the 1990s, Kashmir insurgency started and radical groups started forming their alliances, organisations and penetration of terrorists in the Indian administered Kashmir region with the help of the Pakistani government and their army. Many civilians, armed personnel, activists and politicians were killed. This was the brief history of Kashmir valley, there were also other big incidents that took place in this time. We will discuss them in another blog.

Now, come back to the Pahalgam terrorist attack, where they again wound us with killing innocent civilians in the name of religion. Let’s discuss the terrorist organisations involved in this attack. Aftermath of the Horror of Pahalgam attack of 22 April 2025, The Resistance Front (TRF) took the responsibility of the attack but on 26 April 2025, they pulled back their claim of attack by calling it a communication breach. Now a question might arise: who are these TRF people and what do they do? Let’s briefly discuss TRF and other organizations that were involved in this attack on Pahalgam.

The Resistance Front (TRF)

On 05 August 2019, government of India abrogated the Article 370 of Indian Constitution that provides special status to the region of Kashmir. By abrogating this article, the government of India made Kashmir an Union Territory. Now people of the mainland were also given the domicile certificate in Kashmir under that provision they were also able to purchase land in Kashmir. This abrogation of special status of Kashmir is believed to be the main reason for the rise of the new armed group in Kashmir region named The Resistance Front (TRF). Whereas, some scholars believe that, when Pakistan was added in FATF’s (Financial Action Task Force) Grey list in 2018, TRF was planned to made to divert the focus of International players from Lashkar-e-Taiba and other militant groups present in Pakistan at that time and attacking in India. The TRF was founded in October 2019 and its founding members were Muhammad Abbas Sheikh and Sheikh Sajjad Gul. It is believed that the TRF is formed with the cadets of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen. They attacked on non-muslim people in the region and till now they have conducted 27 attacks in the Kashmir valley. The TRF claims that any person who came to Kashmir to settle will be treated as an agent of RSS. In these attacks they killed many non-muslims, armed personnel and tourists etc,. The TRF claimed that the attacks were conducted to save the demography of Kashmir. The TRF is widely increasing its online presence to propagate their propaganda or misinformation and disinformation online that includes multiple social media platforms, chat platforms and dark websites.

Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT)

This organisation was formed between 1985 and 1986. The founding members of islamist militant terrorist organisation are Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, Zafar Iqbal Shehbaz, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, Amir Hamza, Abdul Rehman Makki and ZakiurRehman Lakhvi. Ameer of this organisation is Hafiz Saeed. The main objective of this organisation, as they stated, is to merge the whole Kashmir region in Pakistan and create disturbance in Indian administered Kashmir. This terrorist group is recognized as a terrorist organisation by the United Nations and several other countries. This organisation was initially funded by Osama Bin Laden. They are supported by Pakistan’s intelligence service Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and they had bleed innocent civilians, armed personnels and others in India at multiple occasions and some of these prominent attacks includes Wandhama Massacre of 1998, Red Fort Attack in Delhi of 2000, Delhi Bombings of 2005, Mumbai Train Bombing of 2006 and 26/11 Mumbai Attacks of 2008. National Investigation Agency (NIA) reported that LeT was involved in the Uri Attack of 2016. It is believed that The Resistance Front is a proxy organisation of LeT, now actively participating in creating disturbances in Indian Administered Kashmir.

Hizb-ul-Mujahideen

Again this organisation is also a terrorist organisation, killed many innocent civilians, armed personnels, conducted well planned terrorist attacks and raised the atmosphere of terror in the region of Kashmir valley. The organisation was founded in 1989 and its founding members were Muhammad Ahsan Dar, Hilal Ahmed and Masood Sarfraz. They all are Pakistan based islamist separatist militants and their Headquarters is located in Muzaffarabad and it is the Capital city of Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. It is believed that this organisation is an armed wing of the Jamaat-e-islami Kashmir. The motive of this organisation is also the same as LeT, they also want to separate Kashmir from India and merge it with Pakistan. The organisation is designated as a terrorist organisation by India, European Union, United States and Canada. Now, let’s discuss some major attacks they had conducted in India, these attacks include Wandhama Massacre 1998, Assassination of Gulam Hasan Bhat 2000, Assassination of Farooq Ahmed Kuchchay 2003, Rajouri Attack on 4 Families 2005, IED Blast in Baramulla 2007, IED blast in an Army Bus in Srinagar 2008, Shootout on CRPF Vehicle 2009, and other attacks. They also participate with its militants in other terrorist organisations to create discomfort in the region.

These are the prominent organisations that were involved in this attack of Pahalgam 2025. Indian armed forces and intelligence wings are working on breaking these organisation’s hubs located in Pakistan.

Conclusion – Good Terrorism or Bad Terrorism?

There are various debates around the topic of good terrorism or bad terrorism, but how many of them talk about the deaths of civilians, innocent peoples, children or commoners caused by these terrorists. Rebels fight, but they fight with authorities or oppressive classes of the societies for their rights, they do not go here and there to kill an innocent human being. There is a difference between rebels and terrorists, rebels want their side to be heard but terrorists just want to create the atmosphere of fear among common people. Killing someone cold bloodedly on the basis of religion and telling their loved ones to go tell the whole scenario of brutality to the Prime Minister of the Nation, shows their dangerous and heinous mentality. International players, organisations and societies should come together and must take their stand on the issue of terrorism. People usually talk about terrorism as they do not have any religion but any one of them can answer this question, “why those terrorists in Pahalgam were asking for the religion of the civilian tourists?”.

If terrorism does not have any religion then cremation of these terrorists should be normal without any religious ceremony because God would also not accept any terrorist who killed innocent people because terrorism is terrorism.