• Adv. Rajiv Sharma

On 22 April 2025, the brutal act of killing 26 innocent tourists and a local youth in Baisaran valley in Pahalgam in a Pakistan-sponsored act of terror has shaken each and every citizen of the country. The pictures of wailing wives in front of their dead husbands in Baisaran Meadows still continue to haunt us.

What jolted the conscience of the entire nation was the manner in which four heavily armed terrorists travelled considerable distance on foot to a picnic spot and took their own time to kill the frolicking tourists in front of their families and then leisurely escaped on foot. The terrorists did not even make an attempt to camouflage their faces from the cameras installed there. All this happened in a busy tourist destination in one of the heaviest militarized zones in the world, which makes it hard to comprehend. In any other civilized country in the world, several heads would have rolled for such a catastrophic blunder of the government.

To understand how could such a heinous act of terror could take place so brazenly in the valley, it is necessary to objectively analyze some past events in the light of the facts prevailing at that time. First, Pahalgam is a popular tourist destination, which remains open throughout the year. There is no direct information available to quantify the number of people visiting Baisaran Valley. But the number of pilgrims, who embark on the pious Amarnath yatra, gives a fair indication of the trends in the footfall in Pahalgam.

Not many of us know that during ten years of the UPA government, the number of Hindu pilgrims going to Amarnath increased very significantly. In the year 2011, a record number of 6,34,000 pilgrims visited Amarnath shrine. The number of such pilgrims was above 6.2 lakhs in 2012 also. Most of these pilgrims passed through Pahalgam. Thereafter, due to change in the government, there was a significant decline from year 2015 onwards, which ranged from a low of 2.2 lakh pilgrims visiting Amarnath shrine in 2016 to a high of 3.70 lakhs in 2023. This is nowhere near the record figure of 6.34 lakh achieved during the Dr Manmohan Singh regime. A simple comparison of the number of pilgrims during the tenures of the two governments trashes the false claims of the present government over the situation in Kashmir.

Second, many parts of Kashmir have seen violent incidents in the past and continue to do so even now. But Baisaran Valley remained free from any major violent incident up to March 2025. It is also reported that there were enhanced security measures in place in Pahalgam and Baisaran valley, at least in July and August 2024. But not even a single security personnel was deployed there on the day of terror attack in April. No one knows as to when and why the security measures that prevailed there in July - August 2024 were withdrawn, while the flow of the visitors was continuing unabated.

The two aforementioned facts raise two pertinent questions, which are troubling the minds of the people of the country. 1. Why has the Modi Government been consistently misleading the country over the situation in Kashmir, when the record number of the Hindu Pilgrims, who paid obeisance at Amarnath shrine in years 2011 & 2012 during Dr. Manmohan Singh tenure were down by 40 to 60% after 2014? 2. When and why the security cover at the busy Baisaran valley was removed, which gave free and unhindered access and opportunity to the dreaded terrorists to target the unsuspecting tourists there?

Even as these questions remain unanswered, various actions taken by the governments after the terror attack were also not above board, which raised fresh doubts on their hidden intentions. The following six para will attempt to establish inter-alia that the government not only did not make tangible efforts to nab the dreaded killers of Pahalgam but their secret plan to attack certain targets in Pakistan was also leaked prematurely, due to which our brave security forces suffered losses.

First, at the time of the terror attack, the surviving victims reported that the security forces reached about 1.5 hours after the incident. But, despite the delay, if the standard operating procedure put in place for such cases had been followed and a coordinated combing operation launched immediately, the terrorists could have easily been captured. Surprisingly, we are yet to hear if any such effort was made by the government. On the contrary, the BJP purposely focused solely on taking political advantage of the attack from day one. The initial condemnation by the BJP leaders soon turned into an orchestrated, rhetorical campaign by them and the hundreds of channels of the media. In the din of such high decibel propaganda aimed at securing electoral bonanza for the PM and the BJP, the real perpetrators of the terror act escaped unharmed.

Second, the terror incident shook the Congress leaders including President Mallikarjun Kharge and leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi, who immediately came out openly in the full support of the government and urged it to take appropriate steps to give a befitting reply to the terrorists. An All-Party meeting was convened. Prime Minister Modi, who was abroad at the time of the terror incident, came back to India but instead of attending the crucial All-Party meeting, preferred to address a public rally in Bihar in view of the ensuing elections. In the rally, the Prime Minister extensively spoke about the Pahalgam incident to instil a sense of fear in the minds of the people to further divide the country on communal lines.

Third, at the All-Party meeting, held in the absence of the Prime Minister, the government attempted to mislead the nation by stating that no permission was sought by the tourists before entering Baisaran meadows. Later, it was found out that the Baisaran Valley remained open throughout the year. The entry into the Meadow was regulated by the government itself, who issued an entry ticket to the visitors also.

Fourth, the Union External Minister of India pre-informed Pakistan about the time and place of attack, India was about to launch on certain targets in Pakistan. Fifth, the Modi government agreed to cease fire on May 10, inexplicably, just after US President Trump announced it on behalf of both India and Pakistan. Sixth, after the ceasefire, PM Modi began addressing rally after rally in six different states in India in order to milk the political dividend out of the terror attack. The PM addressed a total of nine rallies from 22 to 31 May, wherein he repeatedly projected himself at the fulcrum of military success against Pakistan. He coined a new phrase when he said that ordinary people of Pakistan now may have to face Modi’s bullet. During all these rallies, the PM was extensively shown dressed in Army uniform in his photos and life-size cut-outs everywhere. He did not display a sense of remorse or shame for completely failing to nab the actual killers of Pahalgam, who escaped unharmed under the very nose of his government.

The narration of aforementioned six hard facts raise six more questions, which need immediate and honest answers in the interest of the country’s national security. 1. Why did the security agencies take about 1.5 hours to reach the terror attack site in a sensitive and heavily militarized area? 2. Why did the government not order special measures immediately to nab the escaping terrorists when the whole country and all political parties had urged the government to do so? 3. Why did the government mislead the nation during the crucial All-Party meeting held in the wake of the terror attack? 4. Why should the prior information given by the Modi government to Pakistan about the time and place of the impending attack not be declared as an anti-national act for the reason that the information allowed the enemy to get into a state of full readiness and the security forces had to suffer heavy losses due to this?
5. Why has the Modi government been succumbing to the arm-twisting by the US President Trump, time and again? 6. Has PM Modi not been compromising our national security and affecting the image of our Armed forces by displaying his own cut-outs in the Army fatigue at the political rallies and by usurping the credit for the courage, valour and sacrifice of our Armed forces in order to reap electoral benefits?

It is high time the government came clean on all these issues. This is not the first time that PM Modi has exploited human tragedies or terror attacks to further his communal and political agenda. In 2019 elections, he had openly asked the people to elect him for the sake of the soldiers, who were martyred in Pulwama terror attack. But he did not order any effective fact-finding investigation to probe the attack. Hence, the truth behind the Pulwama attack is still under wraps. Similarly, on this occasion also the focus of the BJP is not to capture the real killers of Pahalgam and provide justice to the families of victims. On the contrary, the PM, the BJP, and the media are engaged 24x7 in high sounding propaganda in order to extract electoral bonanza out of a human tragedy caused in a terror attack.

The people of India and the Congress Party are still hoping against hope that the Modi government will act in national interest and work to provide justice to all and strengthen the idea of India. But as things stand today, the Modi government continues to work in a partisan manner aimed at polarizing the country on religious lines. In its continuing effort to further its divisive agenda, the BJP, on this occasion, has betrayed the families of the victims of Pahalgam by letting their killers escape without making any tangible effort to capture them.

The author is Chief spokesperson, Chandigarh Pradesh Congress Party.