May 7, 2025
KATHMANDU – On April 22, 2025, 26 tourists from different parts of India, including one Nepali, were brutally killed by terrorists near Pahalgam, India. The terrorists segregated Hindus and then executed the helpless tourists at gunpoint. This gruesome act of terrorism conducted in the most savage form demonstrates the barbaric intent of the terrorists to instigate a Hindu-Muslim conflict to first destabilise Jammu and Kashmir and then India at large.
The international community was quick to condemn this horrific act of terrorism. Nepali Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli was quick to not only condemn the tragic Pahalgam incident on X, but he also took the opportunity to talk in person with his Indian counterpart, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, expressing Nepal’s support to India’s fight against terrorism.
The fact that a vast number of Muslim countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have also condemned this act of terrorism and pledged their support to India is symbolically important. The support of Muslim countries to India demonstrates that terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir has nothing to do with the Hindu-Muslim conflict. Rather, it hints that state-sponsored terrorism has been a steady strategy to instigate the Hindu-Muslim divide to destabilise India.
The objective of the Pahalgam incident is complex. First, the terrorists wanted to inflict pain and sow uncertainty in Kashmir, instigating the Hindu-Muslim conflict and provoke an Indian reaction. Second, amid Pakistan’s economic downfall and internal hardships, compounded by insurgencies in Baloch and Pashtun areas in western provinces, considerable social and security challenges confront Pakistan. Further, frequent attacks against Pakistani security forces and other vital installations by its own proteges like Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) and regular clashes with former proteges, such as the Taliban in the north, have complicated the domestic security environment in the country. The main objective of the Pahalgam attack is to deflect the domestic focus of the Pakistani masses from these issues and provide an opportunity for the military establishment to reassert its authority in the country.
The Resistance Force (TRF), a proxy of Pakistan-based UN proscribed terrorist group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), has claimed responsibility for the Pahalgam attacks. The TRF and its alias, People’s Anti Fascist Front (PAPF), are a rebranding of LeT designed to evade sanctions on LeT, providing the perfect façade for deniability.
The Pakistan Army and its intelligence apparatus Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has long been trying to rebrand terrorist groups like LeT and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) as indigenous resistance groups active in India and use them to achieve its tactical and strategic objectives. Recent terror attacks by the LeT in the region under the name of TRF include an attack in October 2024 in India’s Jammu and Kashmir Ganderbal district, which killed six innocent migrant workers and one medical doctor. Another shooting at a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims in Reasi in Jammu and Kashmir in June 2024 led to the bus being driven into a gorge, resulting in the deaths of nine civilians and 33 injuries.
Lessons for Nepal
Nepal’s open border with India has made it an ideal transit point for terror activities carried out in India. The arrests of Indian Mujahideen leader Yasin Bhatkal and Yakub Menon in the past serve as examples of how the terrorists take advantage of the open border to penetrate India. While Nepal hasn’t directly faced challenges in the form of Islamic terrorism, the prospects of radicalisation of local Muslim communities through imported teaching of Ahle Hadith—a hardline version of Islam—by foreign maulanas in the mushrooming madrasas along the Nepal-India border in the Tarai is a potential security vulnerability for Nepal in the long run.
Economic linkages between NGOs such as Helping Hand for Relief and Development (HHRD) which has been operating in Kathmandu must be strictly monitored or banned from operating in Nepal. This is because on January 24, 2023 the United States Congressman Michael T McCaul, Chairman of the US’s House Foreign Affairs Committee wrote to Samantha Power, Head of USAID expressing deep concern that USAID had received credible information from Congressman McCaul’s office that one of USAID’s grantees is associated with designated terrorist organisations. The letter mentions HHRD as the grantee and its link to LeT, a United Nations proscribed terrorist organisation.
Foreign intelligence agencies have repeatedly flagged HHRD Country Director Syed Khalid Mohsin who is based out of Kathmandu to be directly linked to LeT. Mohsin’s late father Syed Abid Shah was head of Jamaat-E-Islami in Rahim Yar Khan district in Pakistan.
Raison d’etre
On April 16, 2025 Chief of Army Staff Gen Asim Munir, shockingly expressed his ideological inclination articulated in his public address in Islamabad in front of Overseas Pakistanis, wherein, he announced his commitment to the so called “two-nation theory”, asserting Kashmir remained Pakistan’s jugular vein.
While Hindus and Muslims practice different faiths, human history has clearly demonstrated that irrespective of one’s faith, the ultimate desire of any human being is the quest for freedom and economic well being. The use of religion for political purposes is a stuff for the cowards as when you lack the political imagination to impact change through development and democracy, you need to resort to religion to further your political objectives.
Gen Amir does clearly realise that buttressing radical Islamic rhetoric over the years by Pakistan’s military establishment against democracy within Pakistan has incredibly slowed its overall social, economic and political development. Whether it is Ayub Khan, Zia or Mushraff, all of Pakistan’s martial law administrator’s raison d’etre has been keeping Pakistan on its toes by setting a domestic political narrative that is constantly in friction with India.
The raison d’etre for Pakistan’s principal political parties needs to change from its current obsession with India and Kashmir. For Pakistan’s development and for stability in the region, Pakistan’s democracy, its democratic institutions and ties with its immediate neighbours must witness some sense of peace. Pakistani politics must be inward looking, where democracy gains strength denting the military establishment’s inclination and ability to indulge in risky political adventures that consistently puts Pakistan on the edge on all fronts.
Any potential conflict between India and Pakistan is not desirable for either Nepal or the region. Such a conflict is bound to directly or indirectly affect Nepal.
Siddhartha Thapa holds an MA in Sustainable International Development from Brandeis University, US.