Terrorism in India’s Jammu and Kashmir. 1. What Really Happened

The latest in a long series of deadly assaults calls for a thorough and sober analysis based on facts. The role of Pakistan, along with the exploitation and politicization of religion, is undeniable.

By A. Sahara Alexander

May 30, 2025

Article 1 of 2.

Media coverage of the Pahalgam terrorist attack. Screenshot.

On April 22, 2025, India experienced its deadliest terrorist attack in seventeen years. Five armed terrorists targeted a group of tourists near Pahalgam, a town in the Anantnag district of Jammu and Kashmir. Twenty-six civilians were killed: most were Hindus, while one was Christian and another was Muslim. This was the worst attack on civilians in India since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, during which, on November 26, ten coordinated assaults devastated the city, killing 174 people and injuring 280—mostly Indians, but not exclusively.

The immediate pursuit of those responsible, led by Indian armed forces and police, culminated on April 24 with the death of an Indian soldier during a firefight with terrorists in Udhampur, a city in the district of the same name within Jammu and Kashmir. Two other servicemen were injured.

Jammu and Kashmir, located in northern India, is part of the larger historical region of Kashmir. The area is currently divided among India, Pakistan, and the People’s Republic of China and is disputed. The portion administered by India was formerly a state and enjoyed special autonomous status under Article 370 of the Indian Constitution until August 2019.

This provision was revoked by New Delhi, which argued that the special status allowed Pakistan to fuel separatist sentiments within the region. Terrorist insurgents operating in the area claim their actions are driven by the revocation of Article 370 and the subsequent Jammu and Kashmir Reorganization Act of the same year. This law divided the region into two Indian union territories: Ladakh and the remaining part, still officially known as Jammu and Kashmir. However, elections to renew the local Legislative Assembly held from September 18 to October 1, 2024, restored Jammu and Kashmir as a state again.

The Pahalgam attack in April was brutal. Of course, all terrorist acts are vicious, but it must be emphasized that in this particular case, the assault targeted completely unarmed and peaceful civilians—making the atrocity even graver. The brutality of the attack is evident from the images and photographs of the helpless victims and their families that have been widely circulated in the media.

Police assist a survivor of the attack. Screenshot.

Indian-administered Kashmir bears the scars of the genocide against its Pandit community in the 1990s and continues to yearn for a more hopeful future. The recent elections in the region reflected the people’s aspirations for peace and inclusivity. However, the bloody incident in April underscores how the region remains deeply divided and troubled. To truly understand what is at stake in Kashmir, it is essential to present some key facts.

The April terrorist attack was carried out by the Resistance Front (TRF), which claimed responsibility not just once, but twice—initially within hours of the incident on April 22, and again on the morning of April 23. Only after its handlers and masterminds seemed to recognize the full severity and political repercussions of the incident did the group retract its claim and shift into denial mode.

TRF is a terrorist organization that targets religious minorities, government personnel, and civilians in Indian Jammu and Kashmir. It is widely recognized as a proxy, offshoot, or simply a rebranded alias of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the Pakistan-based terrorist group. TRF operates in close coordination with the People’s Anti-Fascist Front (PAFF), another militant outfit that often serves as yet another alias for TRF. The complex landscape of these extremist networks oscillates between viewing TRF and PAFF as separate yet allied groups and understanding them as different incarnations of a single organization—essentially a rebranding of LeT. This rebranding strategy seems primarily aimed at evading international sanctions imposed on LeT.

Lashkar-e-Taiba remains the core structure behind much of the region’s terrorism. Alongside other Pakistan-based terror groups, LeT has been responsible for multiple deadly attacks in India, with civilians often being the primary targets. The 2008 Mumbai attacks—known as the 26/11 attacks—and the Pulwama suicide bombing on February 14, 2019, carried out by Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), a Pakistani group rooted in the Deobandi school of Islam and active in Kashmir, are two prominent examples. The Pulwama attack involved a suicide bomber targeting a convoy of vehicles carrying Indian security personnel on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway in the Pulwama district. It resulted in the deaths of 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel and the attacker, a local Kashmiri youth.

Under the TRF banner, LeT was responsible for an attack in the Ganderbal district of Jammu and Kashmir in October 2024 that resulted in the deaths of six migrant workers and a doctor. In another incident in Reasi, also in Jammu and Kashmir, TRF militants opened fire on a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims in June 2024, causing the vehicle to plunge into a gorge, killing nine civilians and injuring 33 others. In 2020, TRF killed five Indian security personnel in Kupwara.

Lashkar-e-Taiba militants. From X.

Pakistan-based terror entities are deeply embedded within the framework of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the country’s premier intelligence agency. The ISI has long employed groups like LeT and JeM as proxy actors to advance its tactical and strategic objectives. The practice of rebranding terrorist outfits—particularly LeT and its front organizations—serves as a recurring strategy aimed at evading global sanctions and maintaining plausible deniability. This tactic enables the Pakistani establishment to protect such groups from international scrutiny while continuing to support their operations covertly.

Following the abrogation of Article 370, Pakistan launched a concerted effort to rebrand factions of established terrorist outfits such as LeT and JeM as indigenous resistance movements operating in northern India. Eyewitnesses of the Pahalgam attack in April reported that the attackers spoke in Pakistani Punjabi, which is distinctly different from the Punjabi spoken in India—further confirming their Pakistani origin and revealing the propaganda strategy aimed at presenting cross-border terrorists as local insurgents in Jammu and Kashmir.

The persistence of terrorist operations in Indian-administered Kashmir, despite decades of international scrutiny, underscores the enabling environment that exists in Pakistan—an environment where terrorist elements not only survive but actively thrive.

On February 5, 2025, LeT and JeM jointly organized a conference in Rawalakot, the capital of the Poonch district in Azad Jammu and Kashmir, commonly referred to as “Azad Kashmir”—a region administered by Pakistan as a nominally self-governing entity, although it is part of the larger disputed territory of Kashmir. Titled the “Palestine-Kashmir Solidarity Conference,” the event was attended, among others, by Hamas spokesperson and representative to Iran, Khaled Qaddoumi. Its objective was to draw parallels between the situations in Kashmir and Palestine, aligning the narratives of armed resistance in both regions.

On that occasion, Maulana Talha Al-Saif, the brother of Maulana Masood Azhar, being the Amir (Supreme Commander) of JeM, delivered a speech emphasizing the necessity of “jihad” in Kashmir. He also referenced the Hamas attack on Israel that took place on October 7, 2023.

Later in April, JeM hosted a Hamas delegation at its headquarters in Bahawalpur, Pakistan—a location described as a “heavily fortified, ISI-monitored site” that makes “this delegation’s visit impossible without direct ISI involvement.”

On February 2, 2025, Jamaat-e-Islami, a Pakistani Islamist political party, organized a public rally in Muzaffarabad, the capital of “Azad Kashmir.” Chowdhury Anwarul Haq, the region’s highest political figure—often referred to as “Prime Minister” despite the region’s limited autonomy and tight control by Pakistan’s central government and military—played a prominent role in the event. In his speech, Haq reiterated his commitment to making Pakistan-administered Kashmir a “base camp” for the “freedom struggle” in the region. He also openly expressed support for armed resistance against India in Jammu and Kashmir.

Source: bitterwinter.org