The air in Islamabad feels heavy these days. Not just with the usual churn of a capital city, but with a palpable sense of sorrow, anger, and a steely, if reluctant, resolve. As I listened to Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the DG ISPR, lay out the grim toll of recent Indian aggression – 33 of our civilians martyred, 62 injured – the numbers weren’t mere statistics. They were heartbeats silenced, futures shattered, families torn apart. Each name, each life, as he rightly said, weighs heavily on “the conscience of the armed forces, the people and the state of Pakistan.” It’s a burden we carry collectively, a shared grief that binds us.
From where I sit, observing the spiraling events, it’s hard not to see a pattern, a disturbing playbook that India seems to dust off with alarming regularity. The General’s assertion that India’s current belligerence stems, at least in part, from a deep-seated frustration – a frustration magnified globally when the world acknowledged our Pakistan Air Force’s capabilities in decisively shooting down their much-vaunted Rafale fighter jets, leaving India palpably named and shamed on the international stage for its military vulnerability. This understanding felt less like a boast from our side and more like a depressingly accurate psychological assessment of a regional power lashing out, seemingly willing to “put global peace at risk” to soothe a bruised ego, with scant regard for the human cost.
What chills me to the bone, however, is the recurring theme of India allegedly using terrorism as a political tool. The accusations of India’s hand in sponsoring terror not just within Pakistan, targeting us through proxies like the BLA and the TTP (or “Fitna al Khawarij” as the DG ISPR termed them), but even extending its reach to places like Canada, are deeply unsettling. To hear that “terrorist camps were running in India,” and that their own officials have, in the past, confessed to fomenting trouble in Balochistan – these are not abstract geopolitical chess moves for us. For Pakistanis, this is a lived reality of daily terror threats, a constant, insidious effort to destabilize our nation from within. And as the DG ISPR highlighted, a key Indian objective seems to be to divert our security forces from their crucial counter-terrorism operations, thereby giving these India-sponsored entities more breathing room.
The Pahalgam incident, as detailed, felt like a case study in this cynical manipulation. The sheer implausibility of Indian authorities identifying culprits and assigning blame to Pakistan within a mere 10 minutes – despite the site being a 30-minute journey from the nearest police station – strains credulity to its breaking point. It felt, and still feels, less like an investigation and more like a pre-scripted drama. When our government offered a transparent, third-party investigation, the silence from New Delhi was deafening, only to be followed by what the DG ISPR described as intensified oppression of innocent Kashmiris under the guise of counter-action. This, too, felt agonizingly familiar. Videos were shared of Kashmiris themselves questioning their own government’s narrative, some even calling Pahalgam a “staged event.” When a people under occupation begin to voice such deep suspicion against their occupiers, the world must surely pay attention.
It’s with a sense of grim duty, then, that I noted our military’s response. The DG ISPR, flanked by senior officers from our Air Force and Navy, was clear: our actions have been retaliatory and limited to Indian military posts firing upon our civilian areas. The downing of five Indian aircraft, including three Rafales, and the neutralization of 77 Indian drones, stands as a testament to our preparedness. But this isn’t a score we celebrate; it’s a defense we were forced into. And it contrasts sharply with the images we’ve seen – the gut-wrenching photos of our children martyred, our mosques targeted, the alleged desecration of the Holy Quran. To us, this isn’t warfare; it’s barbarism.
What is perhaps most insidious, and most frustrating from my vantage point, is the relentless disinformation campaign emanating from across the border. The DG ISPR’s challenge to India – “If India claims [Pakistan used drones or rockets], let it present evidence” – echoes a sentiment felt widely here. We see their media conjuring phantom attacks on Karachi, fabricating tales of Pakistani military losses, all while their own actions result in real, documented civilian casualties on our side. It feels like a deliberate attempt to create a fog of war, a smokescreen to hide their own aggressions and internal failings. As the General pointed out, India seems to be “externalizing its internal problems” – like the rising tide of Hindutva extremism and oppression of minorities – by constantly pointing fingers at Pakistan, while “internalizing its external problems,” most notably the internationally recognized Kashmir dispute, through brute force.
This is not the path to peace. The DG ISPR’s call for India to present any purported evidence to an independent, neutral commission, rather than acting as “judge, jury, and executioner,” is, in my view, the only sane way forward. Pakistan has repeatedly expressed its desire for stability, but this cannot come at the cost of our sovereignty or the lives of our people.
As a Pakistani, watching these events unfold fills me with a profound sadness for the innocent lives lost and a deep concern for the future of our region. Yet, amidst this, there’s also an unyielding conviction that truth, however inconvenient for some, must prevail. Our nation, having paid such a heavy price, deserves nothing less than a just peace, free from external aggression and malicious falsehoods. We stand resolute, not in pursuit of conflict, but in defense of our people and our land. The onus, it seems clear to me, is now squarely on India to abandon its dangerous games and engage with honesty and a genuine will for peaceful coexistence.
