Introduction
On Tuesday, 22nd April, 2025, rebels massacred at least 26 people in the picturesque meadows of Pahalgam. This attack was not only a violent assault on innocent lives but also a calculated strike against progress and a deliberate blow to peace. Post the abrogation of Article 370, there has been significant tourist growth in the region, and Kashmir was being promoted to the world as a safe, stable and growing destination. In particular, Pahalgam is an area of central importance as it’s the place where spirituality and economic growth intersect. The Pahalgam attack is among the deadliest attacks in a quarter century in Indian-administered Kashmir, raising fears of an escalation in India-Pakistan tensions. The attack in Kashmir’s southern district prompted anger across India. It took place during the peak tourist season, a period when hundreds of thousands of visitors were vacationing in the region, which is still marred by a three-decade-long armed rebellion
This attack was no accident; the terrorists were aware that Kashmir’s economy thrives based on its footfall during seasonal tourism, and thus, this strike was a message to unravel years of progressive work. The Kashmiri economy now finds itself in a dilemma of growth, raising concerns among store operators, hoteliers and economic hubs that rely on tourism.
Therefore, it was a strategically executed assault with militants open firing on a group of tourists visiting the Baisaran meadows. Notably, this incident records the highest civilian death toll in a single incident. Earlier, Pahalgam witnessed multiple incidents of militant violence, including grenade attacks and assaults on tourist buses, but this attack stands out for its scale, its choice of a high-end tourist destination, and the deliberate targeted killings of civilians. This incident revives painful memories of the 2000 massacre of 36 civilians and enshrines upon resurgence in the tactic of civilian targeting as a tool of terror (Bureau, 2025a). By striking a site associated with peace and normalization, the attack seeks to erode confidence of citizens in the state’s ability to restore security in post-abrogation Kashmir, while reinforcing a narrative of continuing instability, causing a blow to the region’s effort to rebuild lives and livelihood.
INCIDENT AND ITS STRATEGIC PLANNING
This attack was planned strategically, with careful understanding of the terrorism grid of Jammu and Kashmir (Ranjan, Vashisht, 2025)25/04/25 12:39:00 PM. This incident underscores a connection with the revival of terrorism in the Jammu division in the last couple of years. The terrorists who executed the dastardly Pahalgam strike are arguably those who infiltrated the Line of Control (LoC) in the Jammu division in Poonch-Rajouri and Kathua-Samba sectors. This militancy was devised keeping in account the diplomatic landscape the nation was involved in. The attack occurred at a time when a high-profile American dignitary, US Vice President JD Vance, was on a visit with his family, making international rounds, followed by PM Modi’s visit to Saudi Arabia, which was being described as a historic, and would result in Middle East relations breakthroughs. The chronology of events converged into an ideal moment to attack Kashmir, bringing it into the spotlight, and sabotage PM Modi’s visit to Saudi Arabia, a booming tourist season, and Amarnath Yatra that is due to commence in July. It can be argued that this attack was carried out to disseminate a message to the local and global audience and aimed at undermining the perception of normalcy in J&K (Sareen, 2025). On an International front, the Pahalgam attack had tactical imperatives- firstly, it was to pay back India for its alleged and unsubstantiated involvement in the twin insurgencies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. Secondly, it was to raise the military’s stock by rallying people around it, something that is possible only in the event of confrontation with India. Another potential factor was that Pakistan felt terrorism had virtually ceased in J&K with the abrogation of Article 370, making it difficult for them to instil radicalisation and violence in the valley, and making it lose control over the situation.
Lt Gen DP Pandey (Retd) in his podcast asserts that Pakistan’s Army Chief, General Asim Munir, is directly responsible for orchestrating the recent terror attack in Pahalgam,. He emphasised that such attacks are not isolated incidents but are part of a broader grand strategy by Pakistan’s military leadership to destabilize the region(EP-288 | Pahalgam Attack, 2025). Lt Gen Pandey highlights the structured nature of these operations, pointing out that the top echelons of Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies are the originators, controllers, and monitors of the terrorist infrastructure targeting India.
Geographically, the militants chose a planned area of attack, with no security presence, as the meadow of Pahalgam is the place for commercial and tourist activities (Sharma, 2025). The Baisaran meadow was allegedly considered a “perfect target”, as it lacked road access and people could only reach there through ponies or on foot, thereby hampering the security forces’ ability to evacuate tourists.
NON STATE ACTORS INVOLVED AND POTENTIAL LINKAGES
The Resistance Front (TRF), claimed the responsibility for the Pahalgam terror attack that killed national and two foreign citizens. It is a banned militant group that emerged after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. Initially functioning as an online entity, and utilised social media platforms to spread propaganda, recruit operatives, hate speech and coordinate operations.
Though it projects itself as a homegrown resistance movement, TRF is closely allied with the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), adopting a secular-sounding name to deflect international scrutiny and sanctions associated with LeT, and this incident was planned by Hafiz Saeed, the chief of Lashkar, who tactically and logistically guided this group with support of Pakistan’s military and ISI (Mishra, Samiran, 2025). The Pakistani Government and LeT have cosied up regularly in the past to counter India’s influence, particularly in Jammu and Kashmir. LeT functions as a key proxy and receives state support in the form of weaponry, funding, training and infrastructure. Arguably, despite being globally recognised as a terrorist group, LeT’s leaders, especially Hafiz Saeed, receive legal and political protection from the Pakistani state, with arrests often leading to quick releases. This informal alliance has helped Pakistan project power asymmetrically in the region, promoting cross-border terrorism while undermining international efforts to hold it accountable(Kulungu, 2021)
With training and affiliation of the TRF with Lashkar, they adopted hybridisation of warfare in their strike in Pahalgam. Militants were reportedly dressed in Army uniforms and asked victims to identify themselves by name and recite Islamic verses, as an attempt to promote their instilled radicalisation. Those who could not do so were brutally shot at point-blank range. Led by Sheikh Sajjad Gul, TRF’s activities demonstrate a calculated attempt to exploit stability in the region and target civilians as a deliberate strategy to instil radicalism, destabilise the economy, and undermine the state’s efforts at securitisation, highlighting inefficient deployment of security forces (Pahalgam Bureau, 2025b).
With the highest alert of surveillance and agencies exploring all potential angles post the militancy, the NIA is also questioning Tahawwur Hussain Rana, who is in the custody of the NIA for being connected to 2008 Mumbai attack (Tripathi and Chaudhury, 2025) with his affiliation to the Lashkar and suspect of large-scale terror conspiracy spanning multiple cities, with potential targets beyond India’s borders. Emphasising the gravity of the charges, the court underscored their direct implications for national security and highlighted the necessity of confronting Rana with witnesses, forensic evidence, and seized documents, particularly those linked to reconnaissance operations.
INSTITUTIONAL GAPS AND NEED FOR REFORMS
The incident expanded and could not be prevented, not because of intelligence failure, but because of the inability to act on the intelligence accumulated for the region. Based on reports of OSINT, it can be analysed that there were 16 incidents of firing between the security forces and terrorists in the past year. In these firings, Il terrorists were killed, and 14 security personnel died, yet there was no accountability as far as intelligence gathering and acting upon it is concerned. These events weren’t flagged as important or ones that required surveillance, leading to a bigger militancy event like the one in Pahalgam.
Using Bruce Hoffman’s (Hoffman, 2005) model of counter-terrorism, it can be argued that it is important for India to adjust its counter terrorism methods as per the newer techniques of terrorism, and it should look beyond the legal and legislative dimension of justification of CT acts. India must adjust and adapt to the changes we see in the nature and character of our adversaries. At the foundation of such a dynamic and adaptive policy must be the ineluctable axiom that effectively and successfully countering terrorism as well as insurgency is not exclusively a military endeavour but also involves fundamental parallel political, social, economic, and ideological activities. There is a dire need for the adoption of a strategy that effectively combines the tactical elements of systematically destroying and weakening enemy capabilities through the offensive “kill or capture” approach alongside the equally critical, strategic imperative of breaking the cycle of terrorist and insurgent recruitment and replenishment. Based on the geographical and cultural landscape of India (Omand, 2013), a counter terrorism strategy like the United Kingdom’s CONTEST (Prevent, Pursue, Protect and Prepare) ) can benefit Indian government to de radicalise areas of Kashmir that require assistance and ensure a justified relation between law enforcement, military and investigative agencies, without harming the cultural identities and human rights of other citizens of the valley. It is seen that the existing gaps in the IB sector in Samba-Kathua region have been exploited for consolidation by terror cadres to build up for striking in Pahalgam.
The Pahalgam incident happened in the first place, mainly due to a lack of real-time coordination and intelligence sharing, coupled with a weaker CT grid and ambiguous accountability of different agencies, which worked to the advantage of terrorists. However, now the redeployment of the Uniform unit of RR, from Ladakh back to Reasi in Jammu division, is expected to strengthen the CT grid by filling up the void that was exploited by the terror groups, inclusive of the TRF. There must also be interagency efforts to build effective and responsible civil governance mechanisms that eliminate the fundamentals of terrorism and insurgency. A strengthened intelligence and securitisation is only possible with a clear strategy, a defined structure for implementing it, a vision of inter-government agency cooperation, and a unified effort to guide it (Vaid, 2024). It would necessitate building bridges and creating incentives to more effectively blend diplomacy, justice, development, finance, intelligence, law enforcement, and military capabilities, along with untangling lines of authority, de-conflicting overlapping responsibilities and improving the ability to prioritise and synchronise interagency operations in a timely and efficient manner.
ACTION BY THE GOVERNMENT AND WAY FORWARD
With every terror attack, the public screams for escalation, a new strategy and new trends (Vaid, 2024). The trends usually sustain for some time and are duly motivated by the idea of supressing the threat far in excess of the actual threat in existence and this discourse raises concern about “ Evil” Muslims, putting the entire nation at risk, in the Pahalgam attack we witnessed almost a similar thing with perpetrators religiously targeting people, sparking a Hindu-Muslim debate across the nation.
At this juncture, when citizens strive for a legitimate action against the cross-border terrorism, all eyes turn to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. he is expected to stir a response like Surgical Strike and Balakot air strike. As described by Sareen, (2025) if he does not take action to that extent, he will not only lose political support but also undermine the deterrence sought during the earlier strikes. If India doesn’t climb up the escalation ladder by retaliating to Pakistan’s response, it will mean that Pakistan has established deterrence, & not India.
Initially, Pakistan’s reaction to the massacre followed its usual script of denying involvement and warning India against any response. Instead of showing remorse, they tried to deflect blame, calling it a domestic atrocity, protecting their proxies and naming it a false flag operation. This instigated a much-needed war game between India with Pakistan, with an opportunity for India to escalate and strategically confront Pakistan militarily, diplomatically and economically.
On the 23rd of April, India blocked diplomatic ties with Pakistan as a counter-terrorism strategy, and the Cabinet Committee on Security devised certain measures (Misri, 2025). The Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 was held in abeyance with immediate effect and remains suspended until Pakistan credibly and irrevocably withdraws its support for terrorism. The Integrated Check Post at Attari was closed, and individuals who had crossed over with valid visas were asked to return through that route before 01 May 2025. Pakistani nationals were barred from travelling to India under the SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme (SVES), and all previously issued SVES visas were deemed cancelled. Furthermore, Pakistani nationals who were in India under such visas were directed to leave the country within 2 days. Additionally, the Defence/Military, Naval, and Air Advisors stationed in the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi were declared persona non grata and given a week to leave India. In a reciprocal move, India withdrew its own Defence, Navy, and Air Advisors from the Indian High Commission in Islamabad. These advisory posts in both High Commissions were annulled, and five support staff members of the Service Advisors were also withdrawn from each mission.
As a retaliatory measure, Pakistan suspended the Simla Agreement along with the suspension of trade and the closure of Pakistani airspace for India. Upon critical analysis, it’s seen that it has ended the very framework that called for peaceful, bilateral resolution of disputes and respect for the Line of Control, but by doing so, Pakistan has unintentionally given India more strategic space to act. India is no longer bound by the agreement’s restraint clauses, which means it can now justify strong military actions, like cross-border strikes, without being accused of violating a peace pact. This move has also allowed India greater freedom to respond to the situation with enhanced involvement of international actors like the US, Israel, and West Asian and European countries, to completely isolate Pakistan (Sengupta, 2025). Pakistan’s counterproductivity has diminished its appeal of being innocent, as it can no longer reach the International Organisations, claiming that their peace is hindered, allowing India more diplomatic and military flexibility. On the defence angle, India has undertaken a multidimensional military posture to stabilise the situation and signal preparedness for escalation control and defence readiness. On the ground, the Indian Army has responded decisively to ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops, who opened fire at multiple locations along the Line of Control (LoC) in J&K. (Hindustan Times, 2025) The Army retaliated at forward posts, restored tactical control and directed a message against any Pakistani military escalation under the guise of deniability. This ground-level response reflects a shift from reactive containment to active deterrence.
Simultaneously, India has projected strength in its maritime domain. The Indian Navy test-fired a missile from INS Surat (Economic Times, 2025), a frontline guided missile destroyer, in a visible show of combat readiness. This naval drill, conducted amid heightened tensions with Pakistan, has put them under a prisoner’s dilemma or acting against it or not, and this highlights a deliberate signalling strategy asserting India’s multidomain capability to respond across theatres when provoked. The test-firing was a strategic demonstration of sea-based deterrence at a time when regional escalation cannot be ruled out.
These developments reflect a tactical military setup, and India’s actions of not only immediate retaliation capabilities but also a broader preparedness to respond proportionately and asymmetrically. However, this incident signifies India’s need to restore and reshape its counter-terrorism strategy with a synchronised relationship of multiple investigative agencies, further developing a new internal security policy. In the past, the IB (Patel, Avinash, 2008) has been accused of neglecting its duties in garnering information on domestic terrorist suspects, organised crime, and radicalisation, with a focus on political intelligence gathering instead. In contrast, R&AW requires greater terrorism and counter-terrorism expertise at senior levels. To reduce para-civilian atrocities like the Mumbai attack, Uri attack, Pulwama attack and Pahalgam attack, India direly needs to enhance its intel collection through HUMINT, SIGINT & OSINT capabilities, ensuring a seamless relationship between source collection at the operational level to enhance R&AW.
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