The idyllic valleys of Pahalgam once celebrated for their serene beauty and salubrious climate now reverberate with the mournful echoes of yet another act of savagery. The recent terrorist attack that took innocent lives amidst these tranquil meadows is not some tragic accident of history. It is the latest grim manifestation of Pakistan’s enduring strategy of exporting terror into Indian territory particularly into the long suffering Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
The evidence both circumstantial and substantive inexorably points across the Line of Control. It is a sobering reminder that while geography may separate nations the toxic ideologies and carefully calibrated machinations of our western neighbour continue to seep malevolently across the border poisoning the air of peace that India so painstakingly seeks to cultivate.
That ministers and officials from Pakistan occupied Kashmir have issued incendiary statements glorifying jihad and denouncing India’s sovereign authority over Jammu and Kashmir is not a matter of mere political rhetoric. These utterances constitute a carefully orchestrated ideological campaign designed to provide the oxygen of legitimacy to terror networks that otherwise ought to have been consigned to the ash heap of history. When official voices amplified by state machinery endorse violence the boundary between fringe extremism and national policy dangerously blurs sending a potent message to the operatives lurking in the shadows.
Security analysts seasoned diplomats and geopolitical observers are virtually unanimous in identifying a distinct and alarming pattern. The attack at Pahalgam was not the product of some local spontaneous eruption of anger but the consequence of a meticulously coordinated assault orchestrated by handlers situated safely in sanctuaries across the border. Intelligence inputs paint a damning picture of infiltration routes activated logistics carefully arranged and radical indoctrination meticulously reinforced through clandestine networks designed to strike at moments of symbolic and strategic vulnerability. That the assault coincided with the commencement of the Amarnath Yatra and the peak tourist season is no accident. It reflects a calculated strategy to undermine the fragile gains of normalization destabilize the region’s burgeoning economic revival and tarnish the emerging narrative of peace.
The fingerprints of this malign enterprise are not hidden in some esoteric code decipherable only to intelligence analysts. They are plain to see. Leaders of proscribed terrorist organizations like Lashkar e Taiba and Jaish e Mohammed continue to operate with astonishing impunity from Pakistani soil issuing venomous threats against India and inciting their followers to violence. That such internationally recognized terrorists continue to flourish while their supposed custodians of law turn a blind eye can only be interpreted as evidence of either complicity or an appalling abdication of responsibility.
In truth the Pahalgam tragedy is but the latest entry in a long and bloodied ledger of Pakistan’s proxy war against India. From the perfidious intrusion in Kargil in 1999 to the brazen assault on the Indian Parliament in 2001 from the coordinated carnage of 26 11 in Mumbai to the barbarity at Pulwama in 2019 the pattern is chillingly consistent. In each case the trail of terror has led back unerringly to the training camps financing channels arms supplies and strategic planning offered by elements of the Pakistani state to terrorist groups masquerading as liberation movements.
The attack on Pahalgam bears all the familiar hallmarks of this strategy. Intelligence reports confirm intercepted communications between terrorists and their handlers across the border. Recovered weapons bear unmistakable Pakistani markings betraying their origin with almost forensic precision. The modus operandi mirrors previous attacks whose perpetrators were similarly trained and launched by Pakistan sponsored terror networks. There can be little doubt that the blood spilt in Pahalgam was not merely the result of local radicalism but of foreign orchestration.
That tourists and pilgrims were targeted is not incidental. It reveals a diabolical strategic logic. Kashmir’s economy struggling valiantly to emerge from the shadow of decades of conflict depends critically on tourism. By attacking civilians particularly those engaged in sacred pilgrimages like the Amarnath Yatra terrorists seek not only to maximize civilian casualties but also to devastate the region’s economic lifeblood. They aim to drive a wedge between communities to instill fear to sabotage the slow but steady return of normalcy. They hope ultimately to turn Kashmir into a ghost valley haunted by the spectre of terror thus achieving through economic strangulation what they have failed to secure through military or ideological means.
Perhaps most disheartening of all however is the deafening silence of the international community. For all the ringing declarations of a global war against terror Pakistan’s double game professing victimhood while sponsoring victimizers has been tolerated with a diplomatic leniency bordering on negligence. Whether out of strategic expediency geopolitical myopia or a misplaced sense of realpolitik major powers have failed to exert the pressure necessary to compel Pakistan to dismantle the terror networks flourishing on its soil. The result is predictably tragic not only India but the entire world continues to pay the price of terrorism nurtured under Islamabad’s cynical tutelage.
Terrorism as history teaches us is a contagion that respects no borders. Flames stoked in one corner of the world can leap unexpectedly to consume distant lands. To ignore Pakistan’s malign role in Kashmir is to permit the conditions in which terror thrives to spread unchecked.
Faced with such a grave challenge India must craft a robust multipronged response. Diplomatic efforts to expose Pakistan’s duplicity must be redoubled. The Financial Action Task Force must be lobbied to blackball Pakistan further constraining its ability to fund terror. Technological and infrastructural investments must fortify our borders employing cutting edge surveillance tools to prevent infiltration. Cyber monitoring capacities must be enhanced to intercept online radicalization and disrupt communications between handlers and operatives. Domestically de radicalization programs must be intensified especially in vulnerable regions coupling education with opportunities for meaningful employment. Local communities must be empowered to resist the blandishments of extremism while security forces must crack down remorselessly on Overground Workers the invisible enablers of terrorism within.
Equally important efforts must be made to preserve and strengthen Kashmir’s tourism industry. Pilgrimage routes must be secured with visible efficiency sending an unambiguous message that terrorists will not succeed in choking the valley’s spirit. The world must see not a Kashmir cowering in fear but a Kashmir resilient vibrant and determined to reclaim its rightful destiny.
The attack in Pahalgam reminds us that peace is not a natural state of affairs. It must be won defended and renewed constantly. Terrorists seek to kill not only bodies but hopes. We must ensure that they fail. In the end Kashmir’s rivers must carry the songs of pilgrims not the wails of the bereaved. Its meadows must echo with laughter not gunfire. And Pakistan must be made to realize that terrorism even when waged by proxy invites consequences it can no longer afford to ignore. The world owes it not only to India but to itself to confront this menace with the clarity consistency and courage it demands.

Email:-----------------------alisajadlondon@gmail.com