From Kashmir poster to Delhi car blast: How India attack unfolded

"Twenty-six days before a huge blast ripped through a crowded thoroughfare in Delhi, killing 13 people, a pamphlet with a green letterhead had appeared in Nowgam, a staid neighbourhood of cinder-block homes and rutted streets on the outskirts of Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir's main city. Drafted in broken Urdu, the letter proclaimed affiliation with Jaish-e-Muhammad, a proscribed armed group based in Pakistan."

"The text was loaded with warnings directed at Indian government forces stationed in the region, and at those in the local population seen as having betrayed Kashmir's separatist movement. We warn the local people of strict action who do not adhere to this warning, the poster read, cautioning shopkeepers on the highway between Srinagar and Jammu, another key city, against sheltering government forces."

"Such missives were once common from local and Pakistan-backed armed groups at the height of the region's movement to break from Indian control in the 1990s and the early 2000s. But after the Indian government revoked Kashmir's special status, scrapped its statehood, and split the area into two federally ruled territories in August 2019, such posters have been less common and armed violence has fallen, too."

A pamphlet with a green letterhead appeared in Nowgam, Srinagar, drafted in broken Urdu and claiming affiliation with Jaish-e-Muhammad while warning Indian government forces and locals seen as betraying the separatist movement. The poster cautioned shopkeepers on the Srinagar–Jammu highway against sheltering government personnel. Such missives were common during the 1990s–2000s insurgency but became rarer after the Indian government revoked Kashmir's special status and reorganized it in August 2019. Recorded armed attacks fell from 597 in 2018 to 145 in 2025. The pamphlet prompted a multiweek investigation that officials say connected suspects to a car explosion in New Delhi that killed 13 people, and the blast provoked a wave of Islamophobia and anti-Kashmiri sentiment.

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