The Pakistan sponsored cowardly terrorist attack in Pahalgam in the union territory of Jammu & Kashmir on April 22nd, 2025, killing 26 Hindu tourists from all parts of India and one from Nepal is the latest premeditated and calculated act of war by the GHQ (General Head Quarter) and the Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) of Pakistan. General Asif Munir, a rabidly Islamic fundamentalist Chief of the Army Staff of Pakistan sounded a dog whistle to the terrorists already infiltrated across the border to provoke civilian unrest in India while he harped on Pakistan being created because of the two-nation theory and superiority of Islam in front of a recent gathering of Overseas Pakistanis. Yet another dastardly attempt to disrupt India’s surging economy (currently 5th largest economy in nominal terms heading to the third place by 2028) is a brutal assault by the Pakistani Army on the heart of a shining Indian democracy! Senior Pakistani journalist Adil Raja has already made allegations that General Asim Munir is behind the terrorist attack in Pahalgam.

On April 22nd, 2025, a total of 27 innocent people were murdered in cold blood in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam tourist town in a brutal Jihadi terror attack orchestrated by the resistance front (TRF) that claimedinitial responsibility. One of those killed was a mule carrier belonging to the Shia sect that the Sunni terrorists abhor. A two-year-old baby girl’s head was smashed by the terrorists. The victims were asked to declare their religion and recite Kalma. Their identity papers were checked, and male victims’ trousers were forcibly pulled down in front of their families to check their genitals for evidence of circumcision. TRF is an arm of Lashkar-e- Taiba, a semi-military Sunni terrorist outfit nurtured by Pakistan. Thiswas the deadliest attack on Indian civilians in Jammu & Kashmir after June 9th, 2024, the Reasi terrorist attack on a bus with Hindu pilgrims traveling from the Shiv Khori cave to Katra killed nine Hindus and injured 41. Pahalgam attack was a well-planned and calculated military operation orchestrated by the ISI, an intelligence agency of Pakistan at a time to precisely coincide with the New Delhi visit of the US Vice-President JD Vance. There are previous precedents of terrorists operationalizing their nefarious designs at the time of visit of foreign dignitaries. In the year 2000, there was a Pakistani sponsored massacre of Sikhs in the village of Chattisingh Pura during President Bill Clinton’s visit. During President Trump’s visit in 2020 in Delhi communal riots were engineered to humiliate the central government.

Pahalgam terrorist attack, this time, is a total game changer for the psyche of the Indian nation! Time to be nice to Pakistan is over. “Never again” is the cry from heart of India’s youth. Ordinary people in India want Pakistan to be taught a severe lesson so that this rentier state never has the capacity to misbehave in future. We need to learn from Israeli military response to Hamas terror attack in Gaza on October 7th, 2023. This analyst had enumerated the steps the Government of India should have taken after the Pulwama attacks in 2019. Time has come for the Government of India to take appropriatemilitary and police action against the terrorists, their backers and the terror infra-structure in the entire union territory of Jammu & Kashmir and also across the Line of Control (LoC). Nothing should be off the table. Without advocating a full-scale war, appropriate punitive and corrective actions must be taken. No one should get scared by the knee-jerk Pakistani bluff of escalation to nuclear war in the Indian subcontinent. Already 15 overground worker (OGW) or local terrorist sympathizers have been identified by the agencies including NIA, RAW, IB and the local police and five have been arrested so far. There seems to be a collusion between some local elements and the foreign terrorists in planning the carnage. Premature opening of Baisaran meadow to tour operators without informing the security forces and intelligence agencies was part of the conspiracy that was preplanned. 

Government of India has already taken multiple decisiveactions including revocation of almost all the SVES(SAARC Visa Exempt Scheme), medical and business visas, suspending the Indus River Treaty of 1960, which was biased against India to begin with, expelling the military attaches of Pakistan and recalling its own military attaches from Islamabad. All Pakistanis have been asked to leave India and Indian citizens are asked to come back to India. The Ministry of Information and broadcasting has already instructed the press and the social media influencers not to leak or publish any sensitive information about the movement of security forces and other military operations. All trade remains suspended. Pakistan has dubbed abeyance of Indus Water Treaty as an “act of war” and threatened to internationalize the issue. Chairman of the Pakistan People’s Party, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has made a statement that water in the Indus River is ours; or else their blood will flow! The defense minister of Pakistan, Khwaja Mohammed Asif, in an interview with Yalda Hakim after Pahalgam attack admitted that Pakistan has been involved in terrorist attacks but rationalized by saying that they have been doing the dirty work of the “West” for last several decades. He further demanded an independent international probe to ascertain Pakistani culpability as a dilatory tactic. Pakistan has foolishly responded by withdrawing from the Simla Agreement of 1972. This gives carte blanche to government of India to take over Pakistan occupied portions of the former Princely state of Jammu and Kashmir that are under Pakistan’s illegal occupation. The top generals of Pakistani army have already evacuated their families from Pakistan to Australia and England. Pakistani military attaché in London, UK while facing the British Hindu protestors, brandished a photo of Group Captain Abhinandan Vardhaman and made a crude gesture about beheading the protestors.Pakistani armed forces have started to move heavy military equipment and forces to its eastern border to prepare for an all-out war. In its suicidal style, Pakistan has started brandishing the nuclear blackmail card trying to drum up international support for its protection.

India must show her resolve as a hard state and not as a “lamb state” and take this terrorist challenge head-on just like Israel did after October 7th, 2023. Government of India must take a multidimensional and multi-pronged response. Government of India should declare immediately a state of internal and external emergency in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir owing to the law-and-order situation created post Pahalgam Jihadi terror attack. The UT government headed by Omar Abdullah must be dismissed herewith because of local collusion and deception involved leading to intelligence failure. Lieutenant governor’s rule must be promulgated in the UT. Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) must be promulgated in all the districts of the UT of J&K. Sanitization process is going on and the houses of terrorists and their sympathizers are being demolished. We must not be thwarted in our duty and dharma to protect our nation state from Pakistani onslaught owing to pressure from the domestic fifth columnists and the Congress party, the historical backers of Pakistan. Being a rentier state, Pakistan has new sugar daddies including China, Türkiye’ and Qatar that will continue to blindly support it. Nothing must come in the way of action that is the need of time now! Political leadership of India must show a firm resolve to decimate terrorism instead of looking towards the UNSC to declare certain individuals as terrorists. Any territory that harbors terrorists wanted in India must become a lawful target for military action and total annihilation. There is swell of diplomatic support for India from other countries including US, Israel, Russia, France and UK. President Trump has ruled out any US intervention and advised Pakistan to solve the issues bilaterally with India. 

Armed forces must be, now, given free hand to neutralize the terror assets of Pakistan working under the garb of civil society, NGOs and the remnants of the so-called Hurriyat Conference. The bank accounts of all the separatist leaders and their assets must be frozen immediately. The flow of money from Pakistan to terrorist organizations and terrorists through Hawala transactions must be stopped immediately so that stone-pelters are not paid in future to disrupt the security combing operations. The stone-pelters were agents of terrorists and an important part of the never-ending war being waged against the Indian state. The warlike situation must be dealt with only war-footing. The executive must tell the Indian judiciary in clear cut terms not to poke its nose into security operations. National security comes first, nothing else should be allowed to hinder the process. The UT can remain under the Lieutenant governor’s rule till the security situation is controlled satisfactorily and all the strategic assets of ISI and Pakistan are completely eradicated from the soil of J&K in its entirety. Pakistan financed rump of the Hurriyat leadership must be arrested and sent to Tihar jail while the military combing operations take place in the J&K. 

Military action must deploy a massive and overwhelming force that should lead to an end objective accomplished in sight. The Line of Control (LoC) is not a holy cow and security operations must be taken across the LoC. Military action must decapitate the Jihadi Leadership based across the LoC in the Jihadistan-Occupied Kashmir (JOK) using killer drones and missiles. All the terror infra-structure, Jihadi training camps, terror launch pads, military assets of state sponsored actors, ammunition depots, ordinance factories, and civilian infra-structure in permanent support of Jihadi operations in the Pakistan-Occupied part of J& K must be destroyed by precision airstrikes, killer drones and hypersonic missiles. As this analyst stated in 2019 after Pulwama terrorist attack, legitimate targets for military action and aerial bombardment include power plants, military hospitals, water plants, military bases and other supportive infra-structures including terrorist launch pads, bridges, airports, military runways and highways that transport military supplies across the JOK.

Pakistan has already declared emergency in Muzaffarabad after India allegedly opened the sluices on Jhelum River suddenly releasing water. Muzaffarabad is an appropriate target for military action and retaliation for providing financial backing, political cover and material support to terror organizations. The same holds true for the CPEC infrastructure being developed and militarily deployed in the JOK by Pakistan. The 810 miles long Karakoram highway linking China (through J&K and Ladakh) with Pakistan is a legitimate military target to degrade the Pakistani capacity and prevent supplies by land route from China.  Government of India would not be violating any international law or treaty by taking law and order actions in Indian territories under adverse possession by the Jihadi forces across the LoC. Under international law, India has every right to self-defense and to protect her citizens. Entire territory of the former princely state of Jammu & Kashmir including Gilgit and Baltistan are part of India. Indian security forces have every right to go anywhere in the state of J&K under international and national law.

Revocation of the most favored nation (MFN) status was an appropriate action taken in 2019 after Pulwama attack in a series of economic sanctions against Pakistan. We must impose strong economic costs on Pakistan both bilaterally as well as regionally. Choking of water supply through abrogation of Indus Water Treaty will bring Pakistan on its knees. Naval blockade of Pakistan should be on the table. Pakistani artists, actors and players must not be allowed to earn money in India. No more medical visas to Pakistanis for free treatment in Indian hospitals should be granted. The flow of water to Pakistan from the six rivers originating in J& K must stop forever and the Indus Water Treaty must be abrogated, not just held in abeyance. If the diplomatic relations must be downgraded or severed, so be it. We must recall our High Commissioner from Islamabad and send packing the Pakistani High Commissioner back as persona non grata (PNG).

Pakistan and its agencies e.g., ISI and GHQ are punching too much above their weight regionally by having simultaneous terror operations in India, Afghanistan and Iran by state sponsored proxy actors and strategic assets. There was a massive explosion at the Aftab oil refinery in Iran’s Bandar Abbas port with 14 people being killed and 750 injured on Saturday, April 26th, 2025. It is not clear if this was terror attack sponsored from abroad, but Iran has routinely blamed Pakistan in the past for terrorist attack in Sistan-Baluchistan province of Iran.

While the Government of India has the immediate obligation to take stern and effective counter-military action to respond to this latest attack in the asymmetrical war by thousand cuts; time has come for a regional approach to neutralize the Pakistan by a three-way pincer like military movement by the three countries directly affected by the fountainhead of Jihadi terrorism. These three countries located in South-West Asia are namely India, Afghanistan and Iran. A common military alliance for the tactical purpose of defeating Jihadi forces once for all is in the strategic interests of all the three countries that are ancient civilizational brothers. India and Afghanistan have had civilizational and matrimonial alliances from the time of Mahabharata more than five thousand years ago. India and Iran are the two civilizational nations torn asunder by the colonial machinations of the British Empire that created a wedge state of Jihadistan, aka Pakistan, dividing the land-based access between India and Iran. Government of India must offer bilateral Friendship and mutual assistance treaties to both Afghanistan and Iran. As the US has abandoned Afghanistan, under Trump 2.0, there is a security vacuum in Afghanistan which China intends to fill to exploit minerals and rare earths in that country. Pakistan will continue to use its own Taliban proxies to acquire strategic depth in Afghanistan. The strategic partnership agreement (SPA) with Afghanistan signed in October 2011 needs to be upgraded to include military, mutual defense and security cooperation. India should develop an Army and an Airforce base in Afghanistan, having invested $3 billion in civilian reconstruction of Afghanistan. Taliban 2.0 government in Afghanistan should have no hesitation in signing a bilateral friendship and mutual defense assistance treaty with India for next ninety-nine years. This should be followed by negotiations of a trilateral regional security framework involving India, Afghanistan and Iran (IAI). Such regional security framework must allow Indian armed forces access to land bases in Afghanistan and use of Chabahar port as a naval base for security and maritime action against Pakistan. India must be in the driver’s seat this time to safeguard her national and regional geo-strategic interests without looking for permission to act from Washington, DC, New York, Geneva or from London! 

Pahalgam terrorist attack is an opportunity in a crisis forthe modern-day India. As the world moves from unipolarity to contested bipolarity and emerging multipolarity, India must safeguard her long-term strategic interests. As an emerging regional military  power and a rising economic power, India must show firm resolve instead of relying on others. Time is ripe for taking over the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and Pakistan Occupied Ladakh to have land connectivity with the Wakhan corridor of Afghanistan and acquire a land route to Central Asia. The entire world must understand this imperative for India! Pakistan is a transitional state akin to former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY)and the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Both those entities disappeared from the map of the earth despite one of them being a major nuclear superpower. Pakistan is no exception. It is already imploding from within with various ethnic nationalities engaging in multiple indigenous freedom struggles against the Punjabi dominated Army elite.  And the latest terrorist attack on Pahalgam is the manifestation of the latent suicidal wish of Pakistan as it dared to choose to poke the sleeping giant India in the eye. This self-inflicted malicious attack is the last nail on the coffin of the terrorist state of Pakistan that is in throes of a slow and painful death.Make no mistakes, no normal nation will mourn the disappearance of this terrorist state from the world map.

Image source: Business Standard