The April 22, 2025 attack on unsuspecting tourist on the Baisaram meadow in Pehelgam (Shepherds' Valley), Anantnag District in the illegally occupied Indian side of Kashmir is condemnable. Civilian fratricide in Kashmir's war of liberation remains a sad collateral damage.

The fact that Anantnag has been experiencing attacks on Hindu pilgrims repeatedly in the past and is a high security zone for Indian security forces, raises questions.

Without getting into conspiracy theories that are making rounds on either side of the Indo-Pakistan border, and despite the narratives pushed forward by the light weight, immature and jingoist Indian media; on the face of it, it seems a monumental security failure of the Indian establishment.

So, when a handful of militants, in military fatigues, singled out and shot tourists in broad daylight with no immediate reaction by LEAs on site, including the Indian Army, the politicians saw an opportunity to turn this into another opening to whiplash the arch enemy Pakistan.

From the Indian perspective, putting the blame immediately on Pakistan and calling 'The Resistance Front (TRF)' — the obscure group that took responsibility for the attack — an extension of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) without any evidence, made sense. It puts Pakistan — which already suffers from image problem thanks to the incessant Indian propaganda internationally and the likes of Khawaja Asif domestically — on the defensive; it enhances Islamabad's financial woes; and it provides a casus belli or justification for any subsequent Indian reaction, diplomatically and militarily.

So, as a knee-jerk reaction, New........

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