India Seeks Justice for Islamist Terror Attack
India-Pakistan conflict
This version of this article first appeared in Newsweek.
At 1:51 am Indian Standard Time (GMT+5:30) on Wednesday, May 7, 2025, the Indian Army shared a post on its social media handle that blew up the Internet. On X, the official handle posted: “Justice served. Jai Hind!”
‘Jai Hind’ is a standard patriotic greeting among Indians, especially in the armed forces, paramilitary, and law enforcement agencies, which means ‘victory to India.’
Soon, we found out that the Indian Armed Forces had launched air strikes across the Line of Control (LoC) and the Pakistani border. These attacks hit targets deep inside Pakistan. Altogether, nine sites were hit, which the Indian government claimed were Pakistani terrorist infrastructures. Pakistan reported casualties.
Carnage in Pahalgam
India’s attack inside Pakistani territory was in response to the targeted mass killing of Hindu tourists in India. On April 22, 2025, in Pahalgam, a popular Himalayan tourist destination located at an altitude of 7,200 ft. in Jammu and Kashmir in India, terrorists brutally killed 26 civilians. Twenty-five of those killed were Hindu men whom the terrorists singled out for their faith. They checked the victims’ IDs for their Hindu names, separated them from the rest, and shot them in the head from point-blank range in front of their families. Several of the tourists were newlywed couples.
Terrorists also asked men to pull down their pants or unzip them so they could verify the circumcision mark. Notably, as opposed to Muslims, Hindu men do not undergo circumcision. The terrorists also gave the would-be victims the option to recite the kalma, the declaration of Islamic faith often used during religious conversion, to avoid getting killed.
The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of the Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), claimed responsibility for the killings. LeT is a US-designated terrorist group that was involved in the Mumbai terrorist attack of 2008 that claimed 175 lives, including Americans.
Operation Sindoor
After the terrorist attack, the world community was expecting a retaliation by India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had undertaken precision strikes across the Pakistan border when Pakistan-based terrorists had blown up a military vehicle in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir, in February 2019. The terrorist attack had left 40 members of the Indian paramilitary forces dead.
“My political science research,” wrote Max Abrahms, a leading expert on terrorist group dynamics, soon after the Pahalgam attack, “predicts that India will respond forcefully to the recent Pahalgam attack given the civilian carnage.”
Mr. Modi cut short his foreign trip and returned to New Delhi. He vowed to “identify, track, and punish every terrorist and their backers. We would pursue them to the ends of the earth.” Mr. Modi wanted to send an unambiguous message. To avoid any mistranslation and misattribution, he switched to English in a public rally in rural Bihar, a province in eastern India.
The Indian military named its retaliation “OPERATION SINDOOR.” Sindoor is an Indian word. At a mere mundane level, Sindoor is the bright red powder one can see in married Hindu women’s hair parting. It represents a commitment to the sacrament of marriage and the honor of the institution of the Grihastha (householder) Ashrama (stage) of the Hindu life. However, Sindoor has a much higher cultural significance in the Hindu society. It is the embodiment of the Hindu Feminine divinity, Shakti. Sindoor’s vibrant red color symbolizes feminine valor, power, courage, ferocity, compassion, and grace.
Before the military response, India also suspended a 1960 Indus Water Treaty with Pakistan that allocates shared Indus River water between the two countries. While India restricted bilateral trade and initiated civil-defense drills, Pakistan stepped up shelling along the LoC. It threatened to suspend the 1972 Shimla peace agreement with India.
Condemnation, Whitewashing, and Ignorance
There has been widespread outrage and condemnation over the civilian killings in India and around the world. President Donald Trump and several of his high-ranking cabinet members had voiced their full support for the Modi government in dealing with the terrorists.
While several US politicians have been outspoken in their support for India, several others have shown utter ignorance and indifference. When a Hindu American constituent received a letter from Congressman Gerry Connolly (D, VA), the constituent was shocked beyond belief. Congressman Connolly, Hindu American Foundation’s post of X reads, “doesn’t even mention [that the] victims were Hindu, calls the terrorists’ gunmen,’ ignores that Pakistani nationals are implicated in the terror attack.” Congressman’s response points to a lack of awareness about India in the US. One would think that the success of the Indian Americans in politics, business, academia, and the corporate sector would bridge the knowledge deficit about India, but that is not the case.
Throughout this tense period, the Western media also played a dubious role in whitewashing and sanitizing the horrific killings. Many of them downgraded the terrorists to “militants,” “gunmen,” or “armed assailants.” They have rarely mentioned the selective targeting of Hindus in their reportage. For example, this Wall Street Journal report doesn’t go beyond calling the victims “tourists.”
The Western commentary on India often ignores the fact that India has been dealing with Islamic terrorism for decades. In the heart of the India-Pakistan conflict lies the brutally violent Islamic conquest and subsequent colonization of the Indian subcontinent over centuries that resulted in Partition (for Indians, it is always with a capital P) along religious lines. Just days before the terrorist attack, Pakistan’s army chief General Asim Munir said the following at a convention in Islamabad:
“We are different from the Hindus in every possible aspect of life.”
US-India Relationship
The US public and the Trump administration have no appetite for war involvement. While the Trump administration may have overt sympathy with India over terrorism, and despite President Trump’s relationship with Prime Minister Modi, the administration has given no indication it is interested in getting directly involved in the India-Pakistan conflict. These clashes, however, are a test of the US-India relationship, according to Akhil Ramesh, the India head of Hawaii-based think tank Pacific Forum.
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a failed state that military dictators have ruled for the majority of its existence. Its economy is in the doldrums. As America washed its hands of funding the Pakistani military and the Mullahs, Islamabad is in the firm grip of the Chinese. “Historically, Washington has put the two rivals on par,” said Ramesh in a text message. “While Trump may continue that trend by calling for peace and dialogue between the two, several officials in his administration have tacitly supported India’s response to the horrific terror attack at Pahalgam, India.” This tacit support, I might add, comes sans the usual woke lecturing of the prior administration on “human rights,” “religious freedom,” etc.
The Pahalgam terrorists told one of the ladies whose husband they murdered to tell Modi about the killings. It seems Mr. Modi heard it loud and clear.