The anatomy of the July 31 terror attack in Kulgam is quite chilling. Some are drawing an analogy to the Pahalgam massacre of the April 22, 2025, on a smaller scale, basing their theory on the pattern, religious identities of the victims and the numbers 26 versus two; in fact, they are counting 25 Hindu tourists, and Hindu migrant labourers. This is a stark reality, and motivations for doing so are also very clear: to paint Kashmir as unsafe for the countrymen – tourists or labourers. It raises a simple question: whether proponents of such theories are serving any national interest by bypassing the whole spectrum of things as to what happened post -Pahalgam.

There might have been similarities between the patterns and identities of the victims, but the two situations are different. Pahalgam was an open challenge to the sovereignty of India by terrorists whose actions showed that they had been preparing for the heinous act for weeks, if not months. Their intentions were clear: to change the perception of Kashmir for their countrymen.

The terrorists challenged the narrative that Kashmir was safe for national and international events, particularly the Srinagar G20 meeting of May 2023. Terrorists and their backers wanted to put Kashmir onto the global spotlight while signaling that tourists from the rest of the country were unwelcome, and these lethal intentions were pushed through sinister designs to disturb communal harmony in the country.The Kulgam incident, as it looks, was pre-planned: the terrorists seemed to have calculated their risks, as the whole area was under thick security cover, especially with the Amarnath Yatra being conducted under the heaviest security net. This........

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