The Indian government on Monday lodged a strong protest against the BBC for its coverage of the recent Pahalgam attack, which left 26 tourists dead. In a formal letter addressed to BBC India’s chief Jackie Martin, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) expressed serious concerns over the BBC describing the incident as a “militant attack” rather than a “terrorist attack.”
The MEA’s External Publicity and Public Diplomacy Division conveyed India’s displeasure and warned that it would be closely monitoring the BBC’s future reporting.
The BBC’s report, titled “Pakistan suspends visas for Indians after deadly Kashmir attack,” stated, “Pakistan has responded with tit-for-tat measures against India as tensions soared following a militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 tourists.”
The objection from India mirrors criticism already levelled against Western media for their choice of words. Recently, the US House Foreign Affairs Committee rebuked The New York Times for calling the Pahalgam terrorists “militants” and “gunmen.”
In a public post on X (formerly Twitter), the committee corrected the NYT’s language, emphasizing that it was a terrorist attack, not a militant one: “Hey, @nytimes we fixed it for you. This was a TERRORIST ATTACK plain and simple.”
