Pakistan and the hardliners want Kashmir as a perpetual battleground; They don’t care about peace or human lives

Pahalgam attack was claimed by TRF, a proxy of LeT. The TRF and its alias PAFF are acknowledged as a rebranding of the LeT, to evade the sanctions imposed on the latter. This has been a standard and often repeated practice by the Pak establishment for plausible deniability for its involvement with these terror entities and to safeguard them from the international scrutiny and sanctions.

Pak ISI regularly employs terror entities such as LeT and JeM as proxies to achieve its tactical or strategic objectives. A look in to the involvement of Pak nationals in the past terror attacks in Europe, US and other overseas territories, clearly show this. 

Under the name of TRF, LeT had carried out (Oct 2024) an attack in J&K's Ganderbal district, killing 6 migrant workers and one doctor. In another attack (June 2024) in Reasi of J&K, a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims was shot at by TRF, which led to the bus falling into a gorge, resulting in the killing of 9 civilians and injuring 33 others. In 2020, TRF had killed 5 Indian security force personnel in Kupwara 

The attack pattern is familiar. Inflict pain and sow uncertainty in Kashmir and provoke reaction while maintaining a thin veneer of deniability.

LeT and JeM jointly organized (Rawalakot, Feb 5, 2025) a conference titled 'Palestine-Kashmir Solidarity Conference' which was attended by Hamas spokesperson Khaled Qaddoumi in Rawalakot, this February. It tried to link issues of Kashmir with that of Palestine. 

Maulana Talha Al-Saif, brother of Maulana Masood Azhar (Amir JeM), had delivered a speech stressing the need for jihad in Kashmir and made references to the Hamas attack against Israel. On Feb 2, 2025, Jamaat-e-Islami Pak had organized a public gathering at Muzaffarabad in which PoJK PM Chowdhury Anwarul Haq delivered a provocative speech, reiterating his stand of making PoJK a 'base camp' for the 'Kashmir freedom struggle' and openly declaring his support for armed struggle against India in J&K. 

The western border of Pak sees daily fight with the Taliban forces whom they nurtured once but now turned against it. 

Pak CoAS, Gen Asim Munir is reviving the doctrine of managed escalation. He is known as a regressive and hardliner officer within his professional circles. His ideological disposition was clearly reflected in his recent public address (Islamabad, April 16) to overseas Pakistanis, wherein, he announced his commitment to the so called 
‘2-nation theory’ and asserted that Kashmir remains Pak's ‘jugular vein.’ He also revived a rhetoric that ‘Hindu and Muslims are completely different’ and that Kashmir is a perpetual battleground and cannot be tolerated to be peaceful. Moreover, he urged that the young and future generations of Pakistan should be nurtured with the same thought process, reflecting representatives of his mind which incidentally is very akin to what the Islamic extremists believe and promote. 

The Pak media started a false propaganda to confuse the international community that it was a ‘false flag’ operation orchestrated by the Indian government to manipulate international opinion, with accusations that India staged the attack to justify military actions, gain sympathy, and further its geopolitical agenda, especially during foreign dignitaries' visits. 

The circumstances deserve a strong condemnation of the attack by the international community. There needs to be some concrete actions from the international community to rein in the rogue behavior of Pakistan and force it to mend its ways. 

 

General Asim Munir, Pak CoAS