Pahalgam attack: NYT highlights India's failure to produce strong evidence against Pakistan

NEW YORK: India “appears to be building a case for military action” against Pakistan since the Pahalgam attack in Illegal Indian Occupied Kashmir (IIOK), the New York Times reported, highlighting India’s failure to produce strong evidence against Pakistan.

In a dispatch from New Delhi, the newspaper said that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken to more than a dozen world leaders since April 22, but that effort is “largely not about rallying help to de-escalate India’s dangerous face-off with Pakistan but to build a case for military action.”

The report said the situation in the region remains “volatile”, noting that in Kashmir, Indian forces have also begun a sweeping clampdown, arresting hundreds, as they continue their hunt for the perpetrators.

Anti-Muslim sentiment in India is also intensifying, with Kashmiri students studying in other Indian cities in particular facing widespread harassment and many of them feeling compelled to return home, Times Correspondent Mujib Mashal said in the report.

Pointing out that even five days after the assault, in which gunmen killed 26 civilians, the report said India has not officially identified any group as having carried it out, nor has New Delhi publicly presented any evidence to support its claim that Pakistan was behind the incident. The Pakistani government has denied involvement.

The lack of strong evidence offered so far, analysts and diplomats, cited by the Times, pointed to one of two possibilities: that “India needs more time to gather information about the attack before striking Pakistan, or that — in a time of particular chaos on the world stage — it feels little need to justify to anyone the actions it plans to take.”

A military confrontation between India and Pakistan, both armed with nuclear weapons, runs the risk of rapid escalation that could be difficult to contain, the Times said. “But India is largely unrestrained by any global pressure to limit its response, and it has become quicker to flex its muscles in recent years as its diplomatic and economic power has grown.”

Read More: China voices support for Pakistan following Pahalgam incident

Major powers, including the United States, are distracted by other crises, and the Times said India is interpreting the expressions of support by many countries as a green light for any measures it takes.

Unlike with the 2019 Pulwama attack, the claims of responsibility for last week’s slaughter have been murky, with information even on the exact number of attackers less than concrete. A little-known group calling itself the Resistance Front emerged on social media to say it was behind the massacre, according to Indian news outlets.

Pointing towards Pakistan, before India has laid out its evidence even in private diplomatic discussions, has raised some eyebrows considering the gravity of the escalation.

“One diplomat privately wondered: Do you want to go to war with a nuclear-armed neighbor based just on past patterns?”

The Indian government is under pressure to respond to a major security lapse in a troubled area that it was projecting as transformed in recent years and where it has been encouraging tourism, according to the report.