An earlier article by this author, titled “Unabated Cross-Border Terrorism in J&K Needs Appropriate Payback” (South Asia Monitor, 20 February 2025), examined developments in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) from the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019 up to February 2025. It noted that while Pakistan-sponsored terrorism had declined, it never ceased; it expanded to the Jammu region in 2023 and surged again following the April-May 2024 elections.

The execution of Article 370’s abrogation dealt a significant blow to both the Pakistani Army/Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and overt and covert separatist networks in the Kashmir Valley. However, the continued attacks by Pakistani terrorists, including those targeting returning Kashmiri Pandits, revealed that while separatist elements had been weakened, they were not fully neutralised. In fact, their numbers and influence seemed to increase in the Jammu division, as evidenced by two terrorist attacks—on 20 April 2023 at Bhatta Durian, Poonch, and on 5 May 2023 in the Kandi forest, Rajouri—along with several earlier incidents in 2022.

The same article also highlighted that, post-elections, Pakistan-sponsored terrorism had intensified significantly, with attacks extending beyond Poonch and Rajouri into Kathua, Udhampur, and Doda. A troubling development was the deployment of Pakistan Army’s elite Special Service Group (SSG) operatives alongside terrorists to enhance attack effectiveness. This escalation occurred in regions once declared “militancy-free” around 2010.

In earlier years, the Indian Army responded by shelling Pakistani military positions along the Line of Control (LoC), imposing some costs. However, under the February 2021 ceasefire agreement between India and Pakistan, such retaliatory actions were halted to ensure peace for civilians residing along the LoC. Despite this, Pakistan repeatedly violated the ceasefire.

Absence of security presence, intelligence and surveillance failure

The recent terrorist attack on 22 April 2025 at Baisaran Meadow, near Pahalgam, is deeply alarming for the complete absence of police or Central Armed Police Force presence. While the central government acknowledged a security lapse, J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah emotionally stated:

“I did not know how to apologise to the families of the deceased... Being the host, it was my duty to send the tourists back safely. I couldn't do it. I do not have the words to seek an apology... Have no face to ask for statehood now.”

Baisaran, referred to as both a valley and a meadow, is located five kilometres from Pahalgam and can be accessed by vehicle or on ponies. The government reportedly claimed that Baisaran was opened without clearance, though tourists and online sources indicated it had been opened earlier. Regardless, the core question remains: how and why was this area left without security cover?

Over the decades, J&K’s political leadership has repeatedly rushed to remove Army deployments from urban centres after any counter-terrorism success. The recent upswing in Valley tourism should never have lulled the state government into complacency. According to reports, the attackers trekked undetected for 22 hours from Kokernag to Pahalgam—an intelligence and surveillance failure.

'Reckless and pathetic gamble by a military elite' 

A recent article by Pakistani Army veteran Adil Raza offers disturbing insights. He writes that Pakistan, gripped by internal military desperation, has teetered on the edge of conflict not due to provocation but due to the Pakistan Army’s desire to manufacture crises to mask its domestic failures. In February 2025, credible reports suggested the military regime was contemplating provoking India or inviting an Indian attack along the LoC to unify a disillusioned populace and rehabilitate its image. Raza describes this as “a reckless and pathetic gamble by a military elite that has run out of political currency and domestic legitimacy.”

The Pahalgam attack on April 22, in which 26 Indian tourists were killed, supports this assessment. As the massacre unfolded, ISI chief Lt. Gen. Asim Malik chaired a meeting with top division heads to discuss diaspora manipulation, political engineering to weaken the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), control over Tehreek-e-Labbaik protests, and clandestine cross-border operations.

General Asim Munir, Pakistan's current Army Chief and the first to present himself as a Hafiz-e-Quran (one who has memorised the Quran), had shortly before the attack declared, “Kashmir is our jugular vein; it will be our jugular vein; we will not forget it.” The timing of the Pahalgam massacre, coinciding with the visit of US Vice President JD Vance, chillingly mirrors the 20 March 2000 massacre in Chittisinghpura village in Jammu & Kashmir, where 36 Sikhs were killed on the eve of US President Bill Clinton’s state visit to India.

Lament of Kashmiri Pandits

The deliberate targeting of Indian tourists—reportedly identified and killed for being Hindus/non-Muslims—has triggered widespread outrage, especially among the Kashmiri Pandit community. Many recalled the mass killings and forced exodus of the 1990s under the slogan, “Leave your women here and get out.”

The regret expressed by J&K political leaders over this attack has been dismissed by some as "crocodile tears." Several Kashmiri Pandits, with whom this author spoke, expressed anger and dismay, describing the recent J&K elections as a cruel irony that enabled past sympathisers of their genocide to return to power. They recalled how many community organisations boycotted the elections due to the government's failure to acknowledge their "genocide". Citing prominent lawyer Tito Ganju, they reiterated: “When it comes to addressing our demands for justice—recognising our genocide, facilitating our return to our homeland with dignity, and restoring our rights—we are met with silence... We must be firm in our resolve not to lend our credibility to a process that seeks to silence us.”

They also criticised the Supreme Court’s directive to hold Assembly elections by 30 September 2024 as “mindless and insensitive” to the plight of Kashmiri Pandits.

Repeat surgical strikes to dismantle jihadi networks

Key recommendations made by this author in a previous article remain relevant:
(a) Strengthen human intelligence to identify separatist supporters across the Valley and Jammu division.
(b) Expand and upgrade satellite, drone, and camera surveillance to ensure comprehensive area coverage.
(c) Do not reduce Army presence in J&K under any circumstances; instead, station it permanently across the region.
(d) Repeat surgical strikes and Balakot-style air operations to systematically target terrorist leadership and infrastructure. Having carried out each operation only once, India must increase the frequency and intensity of such precision strikes until Pakistan-based jihadi networks are dismantled.

The infrastructural transformation in J&K post-Article 370—through new roads, bridges, and tunnels across the Himalayas—now demands heightened security to protect these strategic assets from sabotage.

Finally, India must go beyond rhetoric. Its kinetic responses must be unpredictable, overwhelming, and effective—without tipping into full-scale war. This is difficult but not impossible.

The author is a strategic affairs analyst and former spokesperson of the Defence Ministry and Indian Army. Views expressed are personal. He can be contacted at wordsword02@gmail.com, LinkedIn, and @ColAnilBhat8252 on X (formerly Twitter).