SRINAGAR, India, April 22, (AP): Multiple deaths are feared after gunmen indiscriminately fired at tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Tuesday, officials said, with police calling it a "terror attack" and blaming militants fighting against Indian rule. "This attack is much larger than anything we’ve seen directed at civilians in recent years," Omar Abdullah, the region’s top elected official, wrote on social media.

"The death toll is still being ascertained so I don’t want to get into those details,” he said. Initial reports said gunmen sprayed bullets at mostly Indian tourists visiting Baisaran meadow, some five kilometers (three miles) from the disputed region’s resort town of Pahalgam. Police said multiple tourists had gunshot wounds, and officials were evacuating them to hospitals.

Police and soldiers cordoned off the area and launched a hunt for the attackers. The attack coincided with the visit to India of U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who is on a largely personal four-day visit. The meadow in Pahalgam is a top sightseeing destination, surrounded by snow-capped mountains and dotted with pine forests. It is visited by hundreds of tourists every day.

Nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan each administer part of Kashmir, but both claim the territory in its entirety. Militants in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989.