New Delhi, April 23 -- The terrorists who killed 26 innocent tourists in Pahalgam hoped to destabilise and reverse the return to normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir in the wake of successful elections and movement towards the restoration of statehood for the territory.

The outfit that carried out the atrocity calls itself The Resistance Front, which the Indian authorities have identified as an offshoot of the Pakistan-sponsored Lashkar-e-Taiba. The nomenclature has been chosen carefully, avoiding any Islamist references, to portray its motivation as nationalist, rather than religious zealotry.

The attack coincides with the ongoing visit of US vice-president J.D. Vance and his family to India. A similarly timed massacre, which killed 36 people...