With Bharat abrogating Article 370 and giving a fillip to tourism and development, peace and prosperity have returned to the Valley. Unable to digest this fact, Pakistan once again decided to unleash a dastardly terror attack at Pahalgam. In an exclusive interview with Organiser’s Senior Assistant Editor Nishant Kumar Azad, Lt Gen (Retd) Syed Ata Hasnain, former GOC of the Srinagar-based 15 (“Chinar”) Corps decodes this ghastly attack. Excerpts:
How do you see the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22, and also its timing?
There is a lot of improvement in the situation in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) overall after the abrogation of Article 370. I have recently been to the Kashmir Valley and visited several locations, including along the Line of Control. And I found normalcy everywhere.
In all this development, the relevance of Pakistan gets compromised, diluted. That’s why Pakistan has and will attempt at every stage to try and keep the pot boiling and hope that a situation will come when they can reverse this entire environment and come back to what 1989 was.
The timing of the attack, of course US Vice President JD Vance is here and I am reminded about the year 2000, the turn of the century, and March 19 in particular, when Bill Clinton was in India and the dastardly incident at Chittisinghpura took place, where a group of Lashkar terrorists gunned down 36 Sikhs. I was myself the Colonel GS of the Victor Force, which looked after this area at that time. And I still remember that this was timed perfectly to ensure that a message was sent out to the United States or to the President of the United States that even while he was speaking in the Parliament in India, India’s control over J&K was questionable. This is exactly the message they want to convey.
You had been to Kashmir recently, and you saw that normalcy was restored. Isn’t this an attempt to break the narrative of normalcy?
Absolutely. I mean, that is my whole argument. I have never seen J&K so normal as I saw it in this last visit. I keep visiting J&K because I am Chancellor of the Central University of Kashmir, and therefore, I get a very good perception of things as they change. And that is why I highlighted this aspect, that looking into the eyes of the people, I could make out a definite change. And the moment I saw this change, I knew that the situation was under threat because Pakistan would not accept becoming irrelevant in Kashmir.
Let me qualify it in this way—Pulwama and Uri were both attacks against Bharat. Uri against the Army and Pulwama against the CRPF. So these are soldiers, policemen with weapons. That’s a different narrative
Then, they were specifically targeting certain pilgrims. They targeted Shri Amarnath Yatra pilgrims in 2017. Now again, the Amarnath Yatra is about to start. In 2017, they targeted a bus outside Anantnag, in which eight yatris were killed. And last year, if you remember, near Reasi, they attacked a bus and those pilgrims who were going to the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi shrine. But this time, this seems to be the biggest one. And something very distinct is the profiling done by them. They have profiled and killed. See, once you kill Hindu pilgrims who are returning from Shri Amarnath Ji Yatra—that’s one thing. The others, who were going to Mata Vaishno Devi, were also Hindus. They were targeted. Here, they were just tourists. And they profiled them and separated them. Now that was a specific targeting by instructions of the Deep State in Pakistan, by the leadership in Pakistan, essentially to bring about a triggering of the communal cauldron in India.
Looking into the eyes of the people of Kashmir, I could make out a definite change and, in that moment, I knew that the situation was under threat
You talked about Pakistan. Recently, the Pakistan Army Chief General Asim Munir while speaking at a public event called Kashmir a “jugular vein.” Do you find any connection between that speech and the
incident that happened in Pahalgam?
See, if we look at this very rationally, this speech was around 7 to 8 days old. Yes, a group of people who are the Pakistani diaspora had come to Pakistan, and he was interacting with them. Something like the Pravasi Bharatiya programmes that we do here, Pakistan tried to copy the same kind of thing in a copycat manner.
Right, but India’s narrative and purpose is completely different. Because we have real achievers in other countries. Pakistan has tried to do the same thing with the Pakistani diaspora. But we talk about progress. We talk about the economy. We talk about investments.
Which is why I always wonder about Pakistan’s obsession. This obsession with India, Kashmir, especially. So, they call Kashmir their “jugular vein.”
The Resistance Front (TRF) has claimed responsibility for this attack. The local units of Pak- sponsored terror groups in India are once again raising their heads. Is Pakistan re-opening its old playbook?
When it comes to the rest of India, especially southern and central regions—the situation remains peaceful. Our intelligence agencies are in agreement on this. However, Pakistan continues to look for ways to disrupt that peace and destabilise India.
If you assess the situation logically, Pakistan’s western frontier—particularly the Durand Line along the Afghanistan border— is currently engulfed in conflict. Their security forces have suffered significant casualties, and that entire front is deeply entangled in both terrorist activity and counter-terror operations.
In such a scenario, why would Pakistan shift its focus toward India, particularly Kashmir? The answer lies in strategic diversion. If Pakistan escalates tensions with India and provokes a response, it could justify redeploying its forces from the troubled western front. This serves a dual purpose: diverting domestic attention away from internal instability, and uniting fractured regions within Pakistan.
By manufacturing the perception of a looming threat from India, what in Urdu is called a hawwa, or exaggerated fear—they aim to foster a sense of national urgency. The idea is to consolidate internal cohesion, rallying groups like those in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and even elements of the TTP, under the guise of confronting a larger external enemy: India.
Recently, in an interview, National Conference leader and Srinagar MP Aga Ruhullah said, “This is not tourism, but cultural invasion. How do you see his statement?
I don’t agree with this at all. People can visit any place in India. The beauty of India is that our culture is an absorbing culture. Tolerant. Secular. This is the strength of India.
