-By Special Defence Correspondent
(Lanka-e-News -23.April.2025, 11.20 PM) -New Delhi -The serene valleys of Pahalgam, a prime destination for Hindu pilgrims and international tourists alike, turned into a blood-soaked reminder of India’s unresolved internal security conundrum on Tuesday. A well-coordinated and cold-blooded attack by militants of The Resistance Front (TRF)—a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) proxy group—left 28 dead, including six foreign nationals, and scores wounded.
The incident has not only shocked a nation still grappling with sporadic violence in Jammu & Kashmir but has also shattered the credibility of India’s Intelligence Services, with National Security Advisor Ajit Doval facing demands for resignation from opposition leaders, civil society activists, and even retired military brass.
This brazen assault has raised uncomfortable questions: How did heavily armed militants infiltrate a hyper-militarized zone? How did they operate unnoticed for days? Why did the multi-agency intelligence grid fail to pick up early signs? And most damningly—Can India claim regional security leadership when it cannot protect its own civilians at home?
According to survivor testimonies and official briefings, the attack occurred at approximately 16:15 hours IST in the meadow-lined outskirts of Pahalgam, just kilometers from the pilgrimage route of the Amarnath Yatra.
Eyewitnesses say three assailants, later identified through Western intelligence intercepts as:
Asif Fuji
Suleman Shah
Abu Talha
emerged on horseback, mingling with tourists disguised as pony handlers. They began asking names and verifying religious identities before opening indiscriminate fire using AK-47s, while tossing Chinese-made grenades into a gathering of pilgrims and travelers.
The attack lasted less than five minutes, but its aftermath was catastrophic. Russian, French, and Nepali nationals were among the dead. The Indian Army, CRPF, and J&K Police responded within 12 minutes—but the attackers had vanished into the rugged terrain.
Subsequent intelligence analysis from Israeli and American sources has traced the blueprint of the attack to Sajid Jutt, a LeT field commander who operates from Muzaffarabad in Pakistani-administered Kashmir. His name has surfaced in previous attack dossiers, but this assault bore his signature brutality—surgical, symbolic, sectarian.
Sources within the Intelligence Bureau (IB) have admitted that there was general chatter regarding “a possible disruptive event” linked to the Amarnath Yatra. However, no specific threat vectors, actor profiling, or local movement patterns were identified in the days leading to the strike.
Critically, human intelligence (HUMINT) failed, while signal intelligence (SIGINT) from satellite intercepts, flagged by Israeli partners, was delayed in being actioned due to inter-agency frictions between RAW, IB, and NTRO. By the time actionable data reached the local security grid, the attackers had already infiltrated.
Former R&AW Additional Secretary Vikram Sood stated on X (formerly Twitter), “This isn’t just a system breakdown. It’s a doctrinal failure. Over-centralisation, personality cults, and bureaucratic ego wars have destroyed coordination in Indian intel.”
At the center of the storm is Ajit Doval, India’s celebrated NSA, often referred to as the nation’s James Bond. Architect of the Balakot surgical strikes and a key figure in shaping India’s assertive strategic posture, Doval has also centralized unprecedented control over intelligence and national security structures.
However, critics argue that his tenure has been marked more by optics and outreach than durable domestic reforms. While Doval has spent the last two years building partnerships with the US, QUAD, and Indo-Pacific allies, many argue that his focus on regional strategy has distracted from crumbling internal security fundamentals.
Congress Party MP Shashi Tharoor declared in Parliament:
“You cannot boast about exporting intelligence frameworks to our neighbours when our own house is on fire.”
Even from within the defence establishment, murmurs are growing. Retired Northern Army Commander Lt. Gen. D.S. Hooda said:
“Doval’s model of intelligence centralisation worked during high-stakes ops like Balakot. But when day-to-day counter-insurgency and HUMINT coordination is required, it’s ineffective.”
This attack’s significance reverberates far beyond Kashmir’s borders. India has, over the last five years, aggressively positioned itself as the anchor of South Asian security, signing defence and cyber intelligence agreements with Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Mauritius, and even Bangladesh.
Just last month, Sri Lanka signed a maritime surveillance and real-time threat sharing pact with India under the Defence Cooperation Roadmap 2025. However, Colombo is now under quiet pressure from its own opposition and civil society to re-evaluate the risks of overdependence on Indian intelligence infrastructure.
Speaking anonymously, a senior Sri Lankan military planner based in Colombo told Jane’s:
“If India’s agencies can’t preempt a mass-casualty event in a zone with more than 40,000 troops, how do we trust their satellite surveillance and data pipelines to protect Trincomalee or Hambantota?”
In the Maldives, where a government led by President Mohamed Muizzu is already pursuing a “India-Out” agenda, the Pahalgam attack has strengthened nationalist calls for cutting down Indian security presence and replacing it with alternative partners like Turkey or China.
The international fallout has been swift. Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose nationals were among the dead, called President Murmu and Prime Minister Modi, expressing condolences and offering joint anti-terror operations.
The French Foreign Ministry summoned the Indian ambassador in Paris, demanding explanations about “the level of protection provided to foreign nationals in conflict-prone zones.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Senator JD Vance, who is in New Delhi on a diplomatic visit to discuss Indo-Pacific security frameworks, had to cancel public appearances, citing security concerns. A U.S. State Department spokesperson confirmed that counter-terror cooperation with India will be reviewed “in light of recent lapses.”
Security experts agree that the root causes of the Pahalgam failure are not new—but their consequences are now geopolitical.
1. Intelligence Silos
India’s intelligence community operates in silos—RAW (external), IB (internal), NTRO (technical), and NIA (investigative). Coordination has always been weak, worsened by turf wars and the over-personalization of strategy under the PMO-NSA axis.
2. Over-Centralisation
Doval’s model, while efficient during specific missions, sidelines local knowledge networks. Field-level coordination has suffered, particularly in Kashmir, where trust between local police and central forces is at an all-time low.
3. Tech Dependence Without Human Intelligence
India’s reliance on satellite, drone, and cyber intercepts has come at the cost of traditional HUMINT—ground sources, moles, and tribal informants that had once been the backbone of Kashmir counter-terror ops.
The upcoming Amarnath Yatra, which typically sees over 600,000 pilgrims annually, is now under threat. The Ministry of Home Affairs has deployed 5,000 additional paramilitary troops, but fears of another strike loom large.
Security analysts warn that more sleeper cells, embedded weeks ago, may be awaiting orders to disrupt the pilgrimage and trigger communal unrest.
India’s security planners must now walk a tightrope—balancing public safety, national pride, and international confidence.
The Pahalgam massacre is not just another terror strike—it is a strategic inflection point. It exposes the widening gap between India’s aspirational regional security ambitions and its actual internal preparedness.
Ajit Doval may not resign. But unless the Indian state overhauls its intelligence architecture—integrating field-level expertise, enabling inter-agency trust, and decentralizing command structures—it will continue to be reactive rather than proactive.
India must ask itself: Are we building a fortress of rhetoric on a foundation of broken windows?
-By Special Defence Correspondent
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by (2025-04-23 18:22:20)
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