The killing of 26 tourists on 22nd March in Baisaran Valley, Anantnag district, Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir, has triggered yet another wave of blame games, misinformation, and political exploitation. India, without any credible investigation, rushed to blame Pakistan. However, a close inspection of the facts, timing, and historical patterns suggests that this tragic incident is far more complex than the surface-level narratives being promoted by the Indian state and its media echo chambers.
India’s claim that Pakistan is behind the attack lacks strategic rationality. At a time when Pakistan is navigating economic challenges, under close scrutiny from global watchdogs like the Financial Action Task Force , and making repeated diplomatic overtures for peaceful resolution of disputes with India, engaging in an act that targets innocent civilians, particularly during the official visit of U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance to India, A cross-border provocation from Pakistan at such a juncture would serve no strategic purpose—if anything, it would undermine Pakistan’s consistent efforts to extend an olive branch for peaceful dispute resolution, a gesture India continues to spurn.
The second narrative involves The Resistance Front (TRF), an indigenous Kashmiri organization that emerged to oppose the Indian government’s demographic and political redesigning of Jammu and Kashmir following the revocation of Article 370 in August 2019. Since then, more than 3.4 million domicile certificates have reportedly been issued to non-Kashmiris, an action many observers describe as an attempt to dilute the region’s Muslim majority and entrench settler colonialism. TRF, emerging from local discontent, claims to represent the voice of those resisting such enforced assimilation.
Targeting tourists appears to be a break from the group’s operational ethos, even though they have been involved in attacks against alleged occupation forces. If the TRF is actually behind the attack it is pertinent to understand the shift in their operational tactics.
Amarnath Yatra has been provided a state patronage. This encouragement has served to increase the number of pilgrims in the recent years. Locals have perceived it as an attempt of saffronization of their culture by the right wing Hindutva driven central government. Such cultural invasion is perceived as an attempt marginalize Muslim civilization. The TRF may have responded to such politicization of pilgrimage and showed a defiance to cultural encroachment masquerading as religious tourism.
The third and most likely explanation of the Pahalgam attack is the probability of a false flag operation. There are numerous documented events in the history when New Delhi applied such operations to further its geopolitical and strategic interests. Days before U.S. President Bill Clinton’s trip to India, 35 Sikh men were brutally murdered in the Chattisinghpura massacre in March 2000. Independent investigations including the Lt. Gen. (Ret.) KS Gill, involved in the CBI investigation into the 2006 Pathribal fake encounter, claimed in a 2017 interview with Sikh News Express that the Indian Army was responsible for the Chittisinghpora massacre. Similarly, in March 2003, the Nadimarg massacre was executed just before then Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s historic visit to Russia which was meant to diversify Pakistan’s strategic engagements.
In September 2016, the Uri attack occurred just as Prime Minister of pakistan Nawaz Sharif was set up to address the UNGA. The SAARC summit was also scheduled shortly in Islamabad. Moreover, the first-ever Pakistan-Russia joint military exercises were about to begin, alongside an anticipated visit of an Iranian naval fleet to Pakistan. The timing of the Uri incident was clearly conducive to India’s agenda of isolating Pakistan and canceling multilateral engagements. On the pretext of Uri, New Dehli cancelled its participation in SAARC. Talks of revoking Indus Water Treaty also started to surface after the Uri Attack. Again in February 2019, the Pulwama attack took place on the eve of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to Islamabad. The ensuing Indian response, including airstrikes and war hysteria, provided immense electoral dividends to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of national elections.
In geopolitics, one must always ask the essential question: Cui bono?—who benefits? In this case India gains multiple political and strategic advantages. First of all, occurrences such as these conveniently deflect attention away from its own well-recorded violations of human rights in IIOJK. India creates a smokescreen to conceal its extrajudicial killings, demographic engineering, violent crackdown on dissent, and press freedom violations in the region by blaming Pakistan.
Second, scapegoating Pakistan is good for New Delhi during important diplomatic engagements. India attracts support from western capitals by playing victim card. Such demonization of Pakistan helps New Delhi to mask its brutal domestic policies, human right abuses, extensive surveillance, mob lynching and demographic changes in Kashmir. Above all, it also serves to get political dividends for the BJP government. Pretending national security, the government suppresses democratic institutions and civil society actors by means of war rhetoric and created insecurity, thereby cultivating a siege mentality.
This carefully designed ecosystem’s other major goal is to support India’s rising defense expenditure. With roughly $72.6 billion spent in 2023 alone, India ranks second in weapon imports. Such disproportionate spending is done at a time when over 234 million of Indian citizens live below poverty line. A country struggling with malnutrition, unemployment, insufficient housing and healthcare system needs a monster to justify arms acquisitions. Pakistan is therefore projected as a danger to give political cover needed to maintain such unequal expenditures. The Pahalgam tragedy, like so many others before it, fits neatly into this pattern of using violence as a weapon to further long-standing domestic and geopolitical agendas.
Within 36 hours of the attack India responded with suspension of Indus water treaty along with closing of Wagah-Attari border, reduction of diplomatic staff in High Commisions, and ordering Pakistani’s to leave its border. Suspending IWT unilaterally, an internationally brokered agreement which withstood wars and crisis since 1960, was not a hasty decision. Without credible investigation taking such action points toward a meticulous homework. In such pressing times of global climate change, using water as a weapon. The suspension of the treaty is a deliberate attempt to convert water into a strategic weapon. Such actions violate the spirit of the treaty and the international institutions like the World Bank who was the guarantors in the first place. This kind of hydro-political brinkmanship exposes a disturbing prioritization of geopolitical posturing over human development. If the international community, especially the United States, fails to respond to this blatant disregard for treaty obligations, it will be complicit in normalizing water weaponization as a legitimate statecraft tool. The Pahalgam incident, seen in this context, appears less like an isolated tragedy and more like a meticulously orchestrated trigger to justify such extreme measures.”Water, peace, and security are inextricably linked,” as UN Secretary-General António Guterres aptly cautioned. The world community now has to choose between encouraging more abuses or sticking up for justice, peace, and the truth in Kashmir.
Authors
Abdul Rehman, Research Officer at Center for International Strategic Studies AJK
Saba Ghulam Nabi, Research Officer at Center for International Strategic Studies AJK
