A Critical Discourse Analysis of Selected News Articles on the Reasi Terror Attack in Kashmir (2024)

Abstract

This study examines how three Indian English-language newspapers constructed the Reasi attack of 9 June 2024, in which a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims was fired upon in Jammu and Kashmir. Three hard news reports were analysed, one each from The Hindu, The Times of India and The Indian Express, published between 17 and 19 June 2024 and selected because they carried the name Reasi in the headline and reported the investigation and the official response rather than opinion. Fairclough's three-dimensional model provided the analytical frame, and each report was read at the level of text, of discursive practice and of sociocultural practice. Six categories emerged from the analysis: lexical construction of the attack, representation of the attackers, representation of the victims, representation of government and security forces, patterns of quotation and sourcing, and the framing of national security. Transitivity analysis was applied to the clauses describing the attack itself. The central comparative finding is that the three newspapers converge more than they differ. All three foreground terrorism as the category of the event, rely almost entirely on institutional voices, and give extended attention to state response, while differing in emphasis, with The Hindu weighted towards administrative procedure, The Times of India towards the individual suspect, and The Indian Express towards political authority. The study contributes a demonstration that reporting of this kind does not present the attack as an isolated security incident but locates it within a connected discourse of victimhood, terrorism and state capacity, in which dramatic description of civilian suffering sits alongside the routine legitimisation of official action. The analysis concerns media discourse and not audience reception.