SOURCE ; NEW18
Last Updated:April 23, 2025, 10:55 IST
As the nation mourns yet another loss after Pahalgam attack, questions mount over how New Delhi will choose to respond — diplomatically, militarily, or both.
Anantnag: Security personnel rush to the spot after terrorists attacked a group of tourists at Pahalgam, in Anantnag district. (PTI Photo)
The deadly terrorist attack in Kashmir’s Pahalgam, which left 26 people dead, has once again thrust India’s national security posture into sharp focus. The scale and brutality of Tuesday’s assault — targeting unarmed tourists in one of the Valley’s most scenic regions — has drawn immediate comparisons to past attacks that reshaped India’s counter-terror doctrine.
In 2016, after the Uri attack that killed 19 soldiers, India responded with surgical strikes across the LoC. Three years later, the Pulwama bombing that claimed the lives of several CRPF jawans was met with the Balakot airstrikes deep inside Pakistani territory. As the nation mourns yet another loss, questions mount over how New Delhi will choose to respond — diplomatically, militarily, or both.
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What Happened In Pulwama And How India Responded
On February 14, 2019, one of the deadliest terror attacks in Kashmir took place in Pulwama, where a suicide bomber from the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a convoy of CRPF personnel, killing 40 jawans. The attacker, Adil Ahmad Dar, was a local youth radicalized by JeM. The incident sent shockwaves across the country and sparked massive public outrage, with India vowing a strong response.
Twelve days later, on February 26, the Indian Air Force conducted a pre-dawn airstrike on a major JeM training camp in Balakot, deep inside Pakistan’s territory, marking India’s first cross-border airstrike since 1971.
The strike was seen as a bold shift in India’s counter-terrorism strategy. A day later, tensions escalated when Pakistan violated Indian airspace, leading to an aerial dogfight in which Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was captured and later released by Pakistan in a diplomatic gesture. India also withdrew Pakistan’s Most Favoured Nation status and launched a diplomatic campaign to isolate it globally.
The Uri Attack And India’s Response
On September 18, 2016, four heavily armed terrorists attacked an Indian Army brigade headquarters near the Line of Control (LoC) in Uri, Jammu and Kashmir.
The attackers infiltrated early morning and opened fire, killing 19 Indian soldiers, most of them asleep in tents that caught fire from grenade blasts. All four terrorists were neutralized. The assault, one of the deadliest on Indian security forces in recent years, was blamed on the Pakistan-based terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).
India swiftly condemned the attack and launched a diplomatic offensive to isolate Pakistan internationally. Ten days later, on September 29, 2016, India announced it had carried out surgical strikes across the LoC, targeting multiple terrorist launch pads in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Special forces crossed the border under cover of night and inflicted significant damage before returning safely. This marked a decisive shift in India’s security strategy, signalling a willingness to retaliate militarily against cross-border terror threats. The strikes were widely seen as a calibrated, bold response to Uri and received domestic and international attention.
