On July 29, India’s government claimed it had eliminated the three alleged perpetrators of the April 22 Pahalgam massacre, an attack that killed 26 tourists, including pilgrims and local Kashmiris. Home Minister Amit Shah hailed the “success” of Operation Mahadev, declaring the perpetrators Pakistani origin based on voter cards, chocolate wrappers, and forensic analysis.
While such closure may appear decisive, the episode invites scrutiny, not because of what was said, but because of what was left unsaid. The government has not released the suspects’ interrogation, there is no independent verification of the evidence, and the entire investigation culminated in the suspects’ deaths nearly 100 days later. This pattern of shock, silence, and selective revelation recalls a chilling precedent in the same region.
In 1995, a group calling itself Al-Faran kidnapped Western tourists from Pahalgam. What followed was not just a hostage crisis, but a crisis of narrative, security, and accountability. Investigative journalists Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark, in their book The Meadow, document how Indian security forces had early intelligence on the hostages’ whereabouts but delayed action. The result? A protracted drama that gradually shifted the global discourse from Kashmir’s political aspirations to the spectre of cross-border jihad.
The book presents troubling details: informants and handlers disappeared; witnesses were sidelined; suspects were executed without trial. Some hostages may have been transferred to pro-government militia figures, further muddying attribution. While no conclusive evidence is presented that India engineered the abduction, the pattern of instrumentalizing the crisis to internationalise the Kashmir conflict as a security problem rather than a political one is well established.
The recent Pahalgam incident follows a similar arc. The suspects were tracked since May, yet no arrests were made. Instead, their deaths were announced during a parliamentary debate on Operation Sindoor, the broader cross-frontiers campaign India claims to have launched in retaliation. The choreography was striking: names, affiliations, and evidence were all disclosed posthumously, leaving no room for legal process or public scrutiny.
Even within India, this has raised questions. Senior Congress leaders like P. Chidambaram and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra have asked why, if intelligence existed since May, action was delayed until late July. Why were all suspects killed and not captured? Why is the government unwilling to allow third-party or judicial oversight?
Of course, Pakistan has consistently denied involvement in the attack and has called for an impartial investigation, echoed by several multilateral voices. But rather than open the process, India has moved swiftly to seal it.
This is not to deny the pain of victims or the complexity of cycle of violence in Indian occupied Kashmir. But it does invite a broader reflection: do unresolved tragedies serve political ends in a region where evidence is easily curated, narratives tightly managed, and closure conveniently declared?
The Meadow’s core argument is not that India orchestrated a false flag, but that the state allowed a tragedy to unfold and then used it to its strategic advantage. When history appears to repeat itself, even in fragments, it is worth asking: are we seeing a crisis resolved or a story managed?
The author is an arms control advisor at Strategic Plans Division.
