A heart-wrenching image of Himanshi Narwal, the newly-wed wife of Indian Navy officer Lieutenant Vinay Narwal, mourning over her husband's lifeless body in South Kashmir’s Baisaran meadow near Pahalgam, stirred even the most stoic hearts. Their marriage, solemnised merely eight days prior, had brought them to a scenic meadow for their honeymoon, a journey tragically cut short by violence.
Kashmir's landscape has been marred by bloodshed for over three decades. A few years ago, a haunting image of a three-year-old toddler sitting on the corpse of his grandfather, shot by the security forces, was equally haunting.
Each summer, Pahalgam transforms into a bustling hub. Post-July, millions of Hindu pilgrims embark on the Amarnath Yatra to witness the icy Shivling in the sacred cave. Simultaneously, the nearby village of Aru becomes a favoured destination for Israeli tourists from May to September.
The region, renowned for its trekking routes, has always attracted adventure enthusiasts. Surrounded by majestic mountains and glacial lakes like Tarsar-Marsar, Fambar Valley, Kausar Nag, Kishansar, Vishansar, Nund Kol, and Gangbal, the path through Wadwan to Pahalgam and Kishtwar is nothing short of paradise. It's rare to find such natural splendour concentrated in one locale.
Security Failures
Over my nearly three-decade-long journalism career, focusing on Kashmir and India-Pakistan diplomacy, every time after such an incident, reams of articles are published pointing to intelligence and security failures. However, over time, it has become quite evident that in many cases, the government or its agencies had prior knowledge but chose not to act, possibly perceiving greater benefits from the ensuing turmoil.
One such incident was the July 1995 abduction and disappearance of six Western tourists from Pahalgam's mountains. The central agencies and the Jammu & Kashmir police were aware that the tourists were held in a village named Wadwan. Photographs of them playing volleyball were even captured from aircraft.
Years later, two British journalists, Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark, in their book "The Meadow: Kashmir 1995 where the terror began," cited former RAW chiefs and police officers, revealing that the abduction was deliberately prolonged to exploit it to tarnish Pakistan's global image.
The authors asserted that the Western tourists could have been rescued, as RAW agents continuously monitored both the hostages and their captors, even photographing them.
When a female mountaineer reported the abduction to the Rashtriya Rifles camp, instead of assistance, she was allegedly assaulted. A Jammu & Kashmir police informant, "Agent A," assigned to track the abductors, was labelled a militant by the army and killed, effectively silencing the source.
British journalists concluded, based on evidence, that India allowed the tourists to perish to gain a significant advantage against Pakistan in the Cold War narrative.
Similarly, in December 1999, during the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC 814, an intelligence officer reportedly advised Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to let the hijackers blow up the aircraft filled with passengers rather than concede to the hijackers' demands.
When questioned about the rationale, it was argued that such an act would diplomatically isolate Pakistan. However, Vajpayee rejected the proposal, unwilling to sacrifice 300 lives for political leverage.
Common Thread
In September 2002, two unidentified individuals attacked the Akshardham temple in Ahmedabad, killing 32 people. After a year-long investigation by the Anti-Terrorist Squad yielded no results, the case was handed over to the Gujarat Police's Crime Branch.
Within a week, they arrested Mufti Mansoori and five others, claiming to have solved the case. Nine years later, the Supreme Court acquitted them of all charges. This raises questions: Who were the actual perpetrators, and who orchestrated the attack? Why were innocent individuals arrested, and whose actions were being concealed?
Coincidentally, 2002 marked the first time Narendra Modi faced assembly elections as Gujarat's Chief Minister. He capitalised on the incident during his campaign, inciting statewide fervour and attributing the attack to then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. To this day, the true orchestrators of the attack remain unidentified.
Over the past three decades, India and Pakistan have teetered on the brink of war thrice: the 2001 Parliament attack, the 2008 Mumbai attacks on two five-star hotels, and the 2019 Pulwama suicide bombing targeting a paramilitary convoy.
A common thread among these events is that intelligence agencies had prior information. Why, then, were preventive measures not taken? This remains a pressing, unanswered question.
In 2001, before the Parliament attack, the then Home Minister L K Advani had warned of a potential assault.
Afzal Guru and J&K Police DySP Davinder Singh
Afzal Guru, implicated in the attack, testified in court that he transported the four attackers to Delhi under orders from Deputy Superintendent of Police Davinder Singh. Ideally, Singh should have been summoned and investigated. However, the court recorded Guru's statement only up to his transportation of the attackers from Sopore to Delhi, omitting the rest and sentencing him to death.
Davinder Singh's name surfaced not only in the 2001 Parliament attack but also in a 2005 incident in Gurgaon, near Delhi. Delhi Police arrested four individuals after an encounter, recovering a pistol and a wireless set. The detainees presented a letter from Singh, then with the Jammu & Kashmir CID, instructing security agencies to grant them safe passage with weapons and communication equipment.
Delhi Police later travelled to Srinagar to verify the letter, raided Singh’s residence, and seized AK rifles and ammunition. All of this is recorded in the official chargesheet filed in a Delhi court. Singh’s name resurfaced again a year after the 2019 Pulwama bombing, when he was caught escorting two militants in a civilian vehicle on January 11, 2020.
The Mumbai attacks in November 2008 exposed yet another failure. Almost every Indian intelligence agency—including the Intelligence Bureau (IB), Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), and even the CIA—had advance warnings. So did the Mumbai Police and the management of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel.
Over the year leading up to the attack, Indian agencies received no fewer than 26 alerts. These weren’t vague notices; they included predictions of potential targets, likely routes of infiltration, and time-frames.
In August 2008, newly appointed Deputy Commissioner of Police Vishwas Nangare Patil, in charge of South Mumbai, even warned the Taj Hotel to strengthen its security. He conducted hours of mock drills, sealed vulnerable entrances, and established a security picket outside the tower wing.
But after Patil went on leave, the hotel administration removed those security measures. The attack happened exactly the same way as intelligence agencies had predicted.
Pulwama Attack
The pattern repeated in Pulwama in February 2019. On the second anniversary of the attack, Frontline magazine reported that between January 2 and February 13—just a day before the bombing—security agencies had received 11 specific alerts warning of an impending strike. One alert even predicted an IED blast on the Jammu-Srinagar highway.
A separate report identified Lethpora Crossing in Awantipora as a high-risk area. That is precisely where, at 3.15 PM on February 14, a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into a CRPF convoy, killing 40 personnel on the spot.
The convoy—comprising 78 vehicles and carrying 2,500 soldiers—was travelling from Jammu to Srinagar. One intelligence report had even advised heightened security along that highway segment. Yet, in the aftermath, police killed a local youth, Mudassir Ahmed Khan, branding him the "mastermind" of the attack—despite acknowledging that he had been under close surveillance for months.
Disturbing Implications
The clear implication is disturbing: Indian agencies had enough information to act but chose not to intervene. Whether this was criminal negligence or strategic calculation is a question that remains unanswered.
In the March edition of The Caravan, renowned defence analyst Sushant Singh had warned that a politically weaker Modi, dealing with a tepid economy, could be compelled to direct the country’s attention again to Pakistan under some pretext. Has this prediction alarmingly come true a month later?
Cows, Muslims, and Pakistan—the three traditional rallying cries of Hindu nationalists—have lost some of their sting. The “cow” narrative has faded; Muslims no longer yield the same electoral polarisation as before; even the controversial Waqf Act has failed to gain traction.
Only one card remains potent and reliable: Pakistan.
It polarises swiftly, stirs nationalist sentiment, and, crucially, converts rage into votes. The 2019 elections proved it, and then the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Satyapal Malik, also later testified to this.
Misplaced Priorities
India is on the threshold of becoming a $5 trillion economy. But that is possible only when there is peace in the region.
Wouldn’t it be better to invest in peace and stability in South Asia? If long-standing disputes were resolved and trust restored, the region could emerge as a global example of cooperation.
Instead of threatening to stop water, why can't the river networks be made navigable up to Jalalabad in Afghanistan to promote commerce?
Nature has already blessed this region. What we lack is the vision—and the statesmanship—to make it thrive. Mistrust has become endemic. Narrow, short-sighted leadership has taken the entire region hostage.
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