#WeWantRevenge—How Mainstream Media Let Kashmir Down, Once Again

“I’ve had enough of the ‘take everyone together’ approach in Kashmir. It will never happen,” declared a anchor, mid-broadcast. The line was not off-script; it was a deliberate provocation, designed not just to stir emotions, but to set the tone. By casting doubt on the very idea of coexistence, it gave language to a sentiment the media would echo relentlessly in the hours to come—that the divide is too deep, the wound too permanent, and the other side too dangerous.

On April 22, 2025, the meadow of Baisaran near Pahalgam was ruptured by gunfire. At least 26 tourists were killed and 17 others injured in what has become the deadliest civilian assault in the Valley since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. While the bullets hit bodies, their reverberations hit something deeper—public memory, collective blame, and the delicate social fabric of a country already fraying at its religious seams.

Almost immediately, media outlets sprang into action. “Breaking news” and “Breaking Now” banners bled across TV screens. Notifications flooded phones. Yet, within hours, contradictions began to appear. Some reports named The Resistance Front (TRF), a known proxy of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), as the perpetrator. Others, including Reuters and Al Jazeera, referenced a claim by a lesser-known group calling itself Kashmir Resistance. But crucially, most of these reports noted a lack of independent verification. In a fog of grief and outrage, the question of who did it began to matter less than the question of what narrative would stick.

The one that stuck, it seems, is one of religious revenge. On social media platform X (formerly Twitter), the hashtag #WeWantRevenge began trending within hours of the attack, amassing over 20,000 posts. Many users invoked comparisons with the Israeli military actions against Palestinians on October 7, folding this attack into a broader, communalised script of “Muslim perpetrators” versus “Hindu victims”. Yet, a closer examination of the hashtag라이브 바카라 ecosystem reveals that a large percentage of these posts originated from unverified or newly created accounts, many with exclusive engagement in Hindu nationalist campaigns. It was a digital dog whistle, amplified by rage and algorithm alike.

Mainstream media did little to intervene. In fact, some helped accelerate the narrative. Republic World reported during a live broadcast that the militants had local support and framed the attack as a communal hate crime, despite no confirmation from investigative agencies. No forensic details. No official comment. Just conjecture, packaged as primetime truth.

Several publications circulated a now-viral clip of a bereaved woman saying, “Shayad Muslim nahi tha isliye goli maar di” (“Maybe they shot him because he was not Muslim”). That line became the emotional spine of dozens of news packages, tweets, and headlines. But there was no follow-up reporting. No examination of whether the attackers indeed asked names or demanded religious identification. No corroboration from other victims or witnesses. Instead, her grief was decontextualised and weaponised, used, at face value, to frame the event as a religiously motivated massacre—a framing that, in Kashmir라이브 바카라 charged history, has long been used to justify extraordinary state violence.

Other media platforms doubled down., director of The Kashmir Files, who declared the incident a targeted killing—a framing reflected in his film that explores a fictitious ‘Hindu Genocide’ in Kashmir. Times Now, meanwhile, took to X to poll its audience on whether Bollywood should sever ties with Pakistani actors.

The prefaced their debate with a headline that read “‘Hindu Carnage Live Streamed To Pak, Time To Turn Anger Into Action!”

This open call for violence and retaliation, deliberately plays into, and furthers existing communal tensions. A posted on X: “Public execution is the only solution to deal with Jehadis targeting innocent tourists.” Whereas furthered narratives from #WeWantrevenge with telecast headlines like “Life taken after asking about religion... Hindustan demands revenge.”

It is clear that there is a sentiment of anger in the nation, one that is not entirely unfounded given the loss of civilian lives; however, what makes this moment uniquely dangerous is the way media, political rhetoric, and social media echo chambers are working in sync. Instead of centring victims or interrogating the security lapse, the focus has shifted to identity: who was killed, who did the killing, and what that means for “us” versus “them”. This flattening of a complex, ongoing insurgency into a communal spectacle does not serve justice. It serves a division. “Don’t allow them to divide us any further in the name of religious identity. Be MATURE, not RECKLESS. Time for concrete ACTION on the ground, not hollow WORDS in TV studios or on social media. Stand UNITED in grief in the face of a terrible tragedy.”

The ethics of these divisive headlines are not just questionable. They are corrosive. According to the Press Council of India라이브 바카라 Norms of Journalistic Conduct, journalists must avoid speculation, particularly in matters that may inflame communal tension. They are to verify before amplifying. And yet, in the race to be first, speed and sensationalism once again outpaced accuracy.

There is still no verified forensic account of who carried out the attack. The Ministry of Home Affairs has not issued a conclusive statement. And yet, public opinion has already been shaped—not by facts, but by the emotional manipulation of imagery and selective quotes. This is not just a product of a long-standing editorial laziness when it comes to Kashmir, but a deliberate manipulation of a moment to serve a narrative that has long been pushed.

It has chosen virality over veracity, outrage over investigation. And in doing so, it has further alienated a region already drowning in mistrust.