Background: On 22 April, 2025 Pakistani and Pakistan-trained terrorists belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out unprovoked attack on Indian tourists at Pahalgam in Jammu & Kashmir in India. They brutally murdered 26 people, including one Nepalese citizen, causing the largest number of civilian casualties in a terrorist attack in India since the 26th November 2008 attacks in Mumbai. The attack in Pahalgam was marked by extreme barbarity, with the victims mostly killed with head-shots from close range and in front of their families. Family members were deliberately traumatized through the manner of the killing, accompanied by the exhortation that they should take back the message.
The attack was driven by objective of undermining the normalcy returning to Jammu & Kashmir in the aftermath of historic and record breaking peaceful elections in October 2024. In particular, it was designed to impact the mainstay of the economy, tourism, with a record 23 million tourists visiting the valley last year. The calculation, presumably, was that harming growth and development in the Union Territory would help keep it backward and create fertile ground for continued cross-border terrorism from Pakistan.
Update: On the night of 6-7 May, India exercised its right to respond and pre-empt as well as deter more such cross-border attacks. These actions were measured, non-escalatory, proportionate, and responsible. They focused on dismantling the terrorist infrastructure and disabling terrorists likely to be sent across to India. India’s intention was not to escalate the matters but to respond to the original escalations of 22 April 2025 terrorist attacks with targeted, precise, controlled and measured strikes and there were no attacks on the Pakistan’s military infrastructure. It is pertinent to mention that after India’s response, the funerals of terrorists in Pakistan were carried out with the coffins draped in Pakistani flags, and state honors being accorded and it came to light that Pakistan is misusing religious sites as a cover to radicalize, direct, indoctrinate and train terrorists.
However, on 7-8 May 25, instead of exercising restraint, Pakistan further escalated the confrontation and retaliated by launching a targeted attack on the Sikh community and the Christians in the state of Jammu and Kashmir, hitting not only a Gurdwara(worshipping centre) and the homes of Sikh community members but also the Christ School and Christian Convent of Nuns, which led to death of two young children. In this heavy artillery shelling by Pakistan, a total of 16 innocent civilians were killed and 59 others injured. Pakistan is making attempts, as part of its disinformation campaign, to paint India’s actions with regard to cross-border terrorism through the communal angle, which reminds of the religious profiling done by the terrorists in the Pahalgam attacks. It is to be noted that people from all faiths, all religions, not just in India, but around the world, have equivocally condemned these attacks.
On the night of 8-9 May 25, Pakistan violated the air space of India and continued air attacks with missiles and drones on Indian territory by targeting military and civilian infrastructure all along the Indian western border from Jammu & Kashmir to Gujarat. These attacks were successfully repulsed by India using both kinetic and non-kinetic counter measures thereby destroying these drones and missiles. Pakistan’s intensified heavy artillery shelling and terrorists’ infiltration attempts have also been effectively foiled by Indian forces along the border. As per the initial technical investigation reports of the debris of these Pakistani drones, they have been identified as the Asisguard Songar Drones of Turkish origin. Despite closure of the airspace, Pakistan used a civil airplane as a cover flying it along the border with India, thereby endangering lives of innocent civilian passengers.
Indian forces exercised restraint and acted responsibly by not responding aggressively against this flying airplane.
In response to Pakistan’s yet another attempt of escalation, India undertook successful and measured attacks against Pakistan’s Air Defence Radars in Lahore and other places.