Deadly Kashmir Terrorist Attack

Risk of Indian Military Escalation Against Pakistan

By Shashi P.B.B. Malla

Last week Tuesday’s bloodshed in Pahalgam, Kashmir – where at least 26 tourists (all male, including one Nepali) were killed mercilessly in a hail of gunfire – marks the deadliest militant attack in disputed Kashmir since 2019.

The victims weren’t soldiers or officials, but civilians on holiday in one of India’s most picturesque valleys.

That alone makes this heinous strike both brutal and symbolic: a calculated assault not just on lives, but on a fragile sense of normalcy the Indian state has worked hard to project in the disputed region (BBC/Soutik Biswas, April 25).

Given the fraught history of Kashmir – claimed in full by both , response is likely to be shaped as much by precedent [what it did earlier by similar attacks] as by pressure [of the people in general, the vociferous media landscape, academic experts and the political parties, above all the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party/BJP].

For starters, the Indian government has swiftly taken a series of retaliatory steps: closing the main border crossing, suspending a critical water-sharing treaty, and expelling diplomats.

These rapid actions demonstrate how seriously New Delhi takes the terrorist attack, which was completely unexpected and caught the Indian security forces in Kashmir totally unprepared and on the wrong foot.

More significantly, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has vowed a “strong response” – pledging action not just against the perpetrators but also the masterminds behind the “nefarious acts” on Indian soil.

The question, analysts specializing in the region say, is not whether there will be a military response – but when, and how calibrated it will be, and at what cost (BBC).

These are the imponderables of the Indian reaction, and the certainty of the Pakistani reaction has not yet been considered.

“We are likely to see a strong response – one that signals resolve to both domestic audiences and actors in Pakistan…

“Since 2016 and especially after 2019, the threshold for retaliation has been set at cross-border or air strikes,” military historian Srinath Raghavan told the BBC.

“It’ll be hard for the government to act below that now. Pakistan will likely respond, as it did before. The risk, as always, is miscalculation – on both sides.

Raghavan is alluding to previous major retaliations by India in 2016 and 2019.

After the deadly Uri attack in September 2016, where 19 Indian soldiers were killed, India launched what it called “surgical strikes” across the de facto border – also known as the Line of Control (LoC) – targeting what it said were militant launch pads in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

And in 2019, after at least 40 paramilitary personnel were killed in Pulwana, India hit an alleged militant camp in Balakot with airstrikes – its first such strike deep inside Pakistan since 1971.

Pakistan responded with air raids, leading to an aerial dogfight and the brief capture of an Indian pilot.

Both sides showed strength but avoided full-scale war.

The danger of a nuclear escalation through miscalculation is ever present with these nuclear-armed enemies – with acute nuclear fallout for the whole South Asian region.

Two years later, in 2021, both countries agreed to a LoC ceasefire, which has largely held – despite recurring militant attacks in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Michael Kugelman, of Foreign Policy and a leading U.S. South Asia analyst, believes that the combination of high fatality levels and the targeting of Indian civilians in the latest attack “suggests a strong possibility of an Indian response against Pakistan, if New Delhi determines or merely assumes any level of Pakistani complicity.”

“The chief advantage of such a reaction for India would be political, as there will be strong public pressure for India to respond forcefully,” he told the BBC.

“Another advantage, if a retaliation successfully takes out terrorist targets, would be restoring deterrence and degradingan anti-India threat. The disadvantage is that a retaliation would risk a serious crisis and even conflict.”

India’s options

Covert action offers deniability but may not satisfy the political need to visibly restore deterrence says Christopher Clary , Associate Professor of Political Science of the University at Albany in the State University of New York.

That leaves India with two possible paths, Clary notes:

  • First the 2021 LoC ceasefire has been fraying, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi could greenlight a return to cross-border firing.
  • Second, airstrikes or even conventional cruise missile strikes, like in 2019, are also on the table – each carrying the risk of a retaliatory spiral, as seen in the air skirmishes that followed then.

“No path is without risks. The US is also distracted and may not be willing or be able to assist with crisis management,” Clary, who studies the politics of South Asia, told the BBC.

One of the gravest risks in any India-Pakistan crisis is that both sides are nuclear-armed.

That fact casts a long shadow over every decision, shaping not just military strategy but political calculations.

“Nuclear weapons are both a danger and a restraint – they force decision-makers on both sides to act with caution .  .  .

“Any response is likely to be presented as precise and targeted .  .  .  .

“Pakistan may retaliate in kind, then look for an off-ramp, says Raghavan.

“We’ve seen this pattern in other conflicts too, like Israel-Iran – calibrated strikes, followed by efforts to de-escalate .  .  .

“But the risk is always that things won’t go according to script” (BBC).

Kugelman says that one of the lessons of the Pulwana crisis is that each country is comfortable using limited counter retaliation.”

“India will need to weigh the political and tactical advantages of retaliation with the risk of a serious crisis or conflict.”

Hussain Haqqani, a former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. , believes escalation is possible this time, with India likely to consider limited “surgical strikes” like in 2016.

“The advantage of such strikes from India’s point of view is they are limited in scope, so Pakistan does not have to respond, and yet they demonstrate to the Indian public that India has acted,” Haqqani, a senior fellow at Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy and Hudson Institute, told the BBC.

“But such strikes can also invite retaliation from Pakistan, which argues that it is being blamed in a knee jerk reaction, without any investigation or evidence.”

“Whatever course India chooses – and however Pakistan responds – each step is fraught with risk. The threat of ,further out of reach,” writes the BBC’s Soutik Biswas.

At the same time, India must reckon with the security failures that allowed the attack to happen in the first place.

“That such attack occurred at the peak of tourist season,” Raghavan noted, “points to a serious lapse – especially in a Union Territory where the federal government directly controls law and order.”

Other Opinions

Some observers say the two neighbouring powers will be pushed back to the brink of war.

“Relations between India and Pakistan are cratering following a deadly militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir,” CNN’s Rhea Mogul, Aishwarya S. Iyer and Sophia Saifi report.

“All but one of the 26 tourists massacred in the attack on Tuesday were Indian citizens .  .  .

“New Delhi swiftly pointed the finger at Pakistan, downgraded ties and suspended its participation in a crucial water-sharing treaty .  .  .

“Pakistan has denied involvement and said that any attempt to stop or divert water belonging to Pakistan would be considered an act of war.”

“Without significant international pressure to de-escalate,” Chietigj Bajpaee writes for the British international affairs think tank Chatham House, “the only real restraints on both parties are concerns of a possible nuclear escalation and the impact of a conflict on their economies.”

At the Australian Lowy Institute, Abhijnan Rej argues the attack was designed, in part, “to provoke a strong, possibly military, reaction from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government .  .  .

“Such a reaction would mire India in yet another conflict with Pakistan and reinstate, in a manner of speaking, Kashmir in global conversations about India.”

Bloomberg columnist Mihir Sharma writes: “After the Uri attack in 2016,” during which militants rampaged in Mumbai, “Modi authorized a special forces strike on a Pakistani military encampment; after the car bomb in 2019, he sent the Indian Air Force raiding across the border .  .  .

“It will take great resolve, and be a political risk, for him to avoid military action this time around.”

Pakistan Army Chief’s Collusion?

Pakistan Army Chief General Asam Munir’s leadership is pushing Pakistan toward internal collapse, according to an OpEd by Aleya Sheikh published in Eurasia Review (U.S./ independent, least biased, highly credible).

With the civilian government sidelined, Pakistan’s military establishment under Munir’s command is accused of fueling domestic instability, economic disaster, and dangerous confrontations with India in a desperate bid to retain control (ANI/Asian News International, April 27).

In Pakistan, as the economy collapses, armed insurgencies strengthen in Balochistan and  Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), and public resentment against the military grows fiercer, Pakistan now faces its gravest existential threat since the 1971 secession of Bangladesh, according to Aleya Sheikh/Eurasia Review.

To divert attention from Pakistan’s internal decay, Munir has adopted an increasingly reckless tactic stoking tensions with India.

The April 22, 2025 brutal attack on tourists in Pahalgam, Kashmir, which killed 26 innocent civilians (including one Nepali), was described as a deliberate act, orchestrated by Pakistan-backed terrorist groups under Islamabad’s supervision, claims the OpEd.

This was not a rogue incident but one executed under Munir’s direct watch, aimed at sparking communal unrest (not only in Kashmir, but in India in general) and provoking Indian retaliation.

Tensions escalated further when Pakistan conducted a surface-to-surface missile test from Karachi’s coast shortly after the attack, heightening regional fears, the writer argues.

With diplomatic isolation mounting, Munir has resorted to exporting terrorism as a tool to engineer nationalism at home.

However, this outdated strategy has drawn a clear warning from India’s leadership, which has vowed decisive retaliation for any attacks.

In trying to manufacture unity through conflict, Munir is risking not just Pakistan’s internal stability but regional peace as well.

His policies are increasingly seen as dismantling Pakistan from within, suppressing civilian freedoms, and driving the country toward violent collapse, Aleya Sheikh writes.

The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com