India yet to disclose evidence regarding Pakistan’s role: Bloomberg

The Pahalgam attack has raised serious questions about security failures in one of the world’s most militarised zones. While India blames Pakistan, officials have yet to present evidence, prompting criticism and fears of rising tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

In a report for Bloomberg, Dan Strumpf and Sudhi Ranjan Sen write: Last week’s deadly attack on tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir has raised a key question among opposition politicians and security experts alike: How could such a brazen massacre of civilians occur in broad daylight in one of the world’s most militarized areas?

After gunmen killed as many as 26 people last Tuesday — most of them Indian tourists lounging in a grassy meadow — Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government was quick to blame what it called an act of terrorism on neighboring Pakistan, which also controls pieces of Kashmir. Pakistan has denied involvement and said it “condemns terrorism in all its forms and manifestations.”

But in recent meetings with diplomats, Indian officials have yet to disclose hard evidence linking Islamabad to the attack, according to two envoys briefed last week by India who asked not to be identified because the meeting was private. And in a meeting with political leaders over the weekend, Home Minister Amit Shah said a security lapse was behind the attack, according to a post on social media from the opposition Congress Party.

Shah also told the gathering that military and other personnel hadn’t intercepted communication among the perpetrators near the attack site, according to an opposition party member present at the meeting.

Shah hasn’t responded to the Congress social media post or publicly addressed criticisms of an intelligence failure. India’s Ministry of Home Affairs and the prime minister’s office didn’t reply to requests for comment.

“The agencies should have had some sort of information about a group attempting an incident like this,” said Sushant Singh, a former colonel in the Indian Army and a lecturer at Yale University. “Either they were able to garner this information or they failed to process it, and in both it is something that needs hard reckoning.”

Yet much is still unknown about what exactly occurred in the picturesque meadows of Pahalgam, near the city of Srinagar. Security at the attack site appears to have been scant, with the nearest army unit about 20 kilometers away, according to Indian officials who didn’t want to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.

“There was not even a single Indian Army personnel there,” said Siddaramaiah, a Congress Party leader from Karnataka, the home state of several of the victims. “Isn’t this a security failure?” he said, according to India’s PTI news agency.

Ashley Tellis, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former US diplomat based in New Delhi, said the attack points to “significant improvements” in the capabilities of militants targeting Indian-administered Kashmir.

“In the past, the government’s security machinery essentially tracked the movements of these groups through a combination of human and technological intelligence,” he said. “If these groups have become more adept at operational security, and are using an advanced communication system that the government cannot track or cannot crack, then that obviously gives them an edge.”