A restrained response to terror

The terror attack in Pahalgam’s Baisaran Valley on April 22, 2025, was an assault not only on innocent lives but on a shared Indian idea of normalcy. 26 civilians – 25 tourists and a local pony operator – were killed, many of them on what was meant to be an ordinary holiday in one of India’s most visited hill destinations.

For families in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bhopal or Kochi, the attack felt unsettling precisely because it erased the distance between conflict and everyday life. Eight months later, the Indian State’s response has taken a form that rarely attracts public attention: a 1,597-page chargesheet filed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) before a special court in Jammu. It is not a dramatic gesture, nor an emotional one. But it is arguably the most consequential response India can offer to terrorism – one rooted in law, documentation and restraint.

The chargesheet represents an effort to confront terror not through loud assertion but through forensic clarity; to build a case that can endure legal scrutiny rather than momentary outrage.

The Pahalgam attack was planned and executed with military precision. Terrorists armed with M4 carbines and AK-47 rifles targeted unarmed civilians in a crowded tourist meadow. In the months that followed, security forces tracked those responsible, culminating in ‘Operation Mahadev’ in July 2025, when three Pakistani terrorists – Faisal Jatt alias Suleman Shah, Habeeb Tahir alias Jibran, and Hamza Afghani – were killed in the Dachigam forest on the outskirts of Srinagar.

What distinguishes this case is how the aftermath was handled. Rather than treating the encounter as closure, investigators treated it as evidence. Ballistic analysis linked weapons recovered in Dachigam to cartridges found at Pahalgam. This emphasis on scientific linkage reflects lessons learned from past cases, where prosecutions collapsed due to weak or circumstantial evidence.

India’s counter-terror apparatus, often criticised for overreach or haste, appears to have opted here for method over momentum.

The chargesheet names seven accused, including Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and its proxy, The Resistance Front (TRF), as legal entities. TRF had initially claimed responsibility for the attack before retracting its statement, a familiar pattern in proxy militancy. By naming both organisations formally, the NIA has placed judicial accountability over political messaging.

This is an important distinction. India has long accused Pakistan-based groups of orchestrating attacks, but such claims often remained in the diplomatic domain, vulnerable to denial and counterclaims. By placing these allegations within a criminal prosecution, supported by digital records, communication trails and forensic evidence, the State is shifting the argument from geopolitics to jurisprudence.

The charges invoked, including those under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, UAPA, and the Arms Act, are designed for endurance. Convictions under these provisions demand proof beyond reasonable doubt, not rhetorical certainty.

Perhaps the most understated yet significant aspect of the case is its restraint. Despite operating in a region with a long history of insurgency, the investigation has charged only two local residents, accused of harbouring the terrorists. For years, India’s Kashmir policy has been criticised, often fairly, for conflating militancy with the population. Broad detentions and sweeping operations weakened public trust and legal outcomes alike. The Pahalgam case suggests an institutional awareness that credibility flows from precision, not scale. This matters beyond Kashmir. For citizens across India, confidence in the State’s counter-terror response depends not only on its strength, but on its fairness.

Evidence as strategy

The deeper message of the chargesheet is about how
India now seeks to confront denial. For decades, terrorism in South Asia has existed in a grey zone of plausible deniability, where responsibility is hinted at but rarely established conclusively.

By assembling a dense evidentiary record, linking handlers, finances, communications and weapons, the NIA is attempting to close that grey zone. This is about ensuring that when India speaks of responsibility, it does so with material that can withstand not just international scepticism, but domestic judicial scrutiny.

The Pahalgam victims were not soldiers or officials; they were civilians from across India, travelling within their own country. That reality makes this case national, not regional. The chargesheet underscores a simple but vital point: security is not maintained only at borders or through force. It is maintained in courtrooms, through files that may be dull to read but decisive in outcome.

The Indian State’s response to Pahalgam is not perfect, nor final. Trials will be long. Verdicts are uncertain. But by choosing to respond with evidence rather than impulse, and law rather than spectacle, India signals a confidence in its institutions. In an age of noise, that restraint may be its strongest statement.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.