The terrorist attack on April 22, 2025, in Pahalgam, Jammu & Kashmir, resulted in the death of 26 people, mostly Hindus. The gory details of the massacre — from the perpetrators checking the identity cards of people to confirm whether they were non-Muslims, to singling out non-Muslims by asking them to recite an Islamic verse and, in extreme cases, pulling down their pants to leave nothing to chance — reminded many of the October 7 incident in Israel.
Though the killings in Israel last year were much bigger in scale and intensity, one finds similarity in the nature of the two massacres. The perpetrators in both cases were extremely proud of what they were doing. They were highly animated and boastful, and the guilt of indulging in the killing of another human being was missing. It was as if those killed were either not worth living or were not human beings at all.
This tendency to relish at the plight of others has been poignantly brought out by Douglas Murray in his book, On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization. Murray, a British journalist working with The Spectator, records an interaction between a terrorist involved in the October 7 massacre and his family members:
Content retrieved from: https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/pahalgam-is-a-historic-opportunity-to-change-the-jihadi-dna-of-pakistan-13884798.html.
