Debunking the ISI’s Public Relations Disinformation

In the serene meadows of Baisaran Valley, a horrific tragedy unfolded in the last week of April 2025. Twenty-six innocent lives, tourists basking in the beauty of Pahalgam, were snuffed out in a hail of bullets. The Resistance Front, a shadowy proxy of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant outfit based in Pakistan claimed responsibility immediately after the incident, only for Pakistan larer to spin a tired tale of denial, cloaking its complicity in claims about an “(Indian) false flag operation”. This is not a new script. It’s the latest chapter in Pakistan’s decades-long doctrine of “bleeding India with a thousand cuts”, a strategy as insidious as it is exposed. The Pahalgam massacre, orchestrated with chilling precision, lays bare the Pakistani deep state’s machinations and no amount of disinformation can obscure the truth.

The military record between India and Pakistan is a chronicle of humiliation and ambition. The Pakistani armed forces came to realise that they could not compete with India’s conventional military power after losing three ‘classical’ wars in 1947, 1965, and 1971. In the late 1970s, when General Zia-ul-Haq was president, Pakistan adopted a more covert approach. It began employing covert terrorism and asymmetric warfare to destabilise India. This doctrine, which was dubbed “bleeding India with a thousand cuts”, sought to take advantage of India’s ethno-religious diversity and exacerbate tensions in the country. The strategy, which was first tested in Punjab to fuel the Khalistani insurgency, found its most lasting application in Jammu and Kashmir, which Pakistan refers to as its “jugular vein”.

For decades, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence and military-industrial complex have orchestrated terror in Kashmir while maintaining a veneer of diplomatic innocence, claiming to offer only moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination. This plausible deniability is a cornerstone of the playbook, allowing Pakistan to distance itself from the blood spilled by its proxy groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad while stoking violence across the border. The Pahalgam attack is a textbook example of this strategy and Pakistan’s reflex to label it a false flag operation is as predictable as it is hollow. 

The massacre in Baisaran Valley came just six days after Pakistan’s Army Chief, General Asim Munir, delivered a venomous speech at the Overseas Pakistanis Convention in Islamabad. His words were not mere rhetoric; they were a dog whistle to his jihadist foot soldiers awaiting orders. General Asim Munir’s speech was no statesman’s address; it was a divisive sermon and a call to war, invoking the Two-Nation Theory to stoke communal hatred and justify Pakistan’s obsession with Kashmir. By now we know that such rhetoric from Pakistani leaders; be it politicians, generals, or deep state masters, often precedes terror attacks. Munir’s speech, laden with references to a civilisational divide between Hindus and Muslims, was a green light for the ISI’s proxies to strike. The timing of the Pahalgam attack, mere days after his remarks, is no coincidence. It’s a pattern as old as Pakistan’s proxy war itself.

Within hours of the Pahalgam massacre, the Resistance Front claimed responsibility through their social media accounts, framing the attack as a reaction to India’s plan to carry out demographic changes in Kashmir. The TRF, formed in October 2019, is no grassroots movement. It’s a rebranded facade for Lashkar-e-Taiba, created by Pakistan’s ISI and its propaganda arm, the Inter-Services Public Relations, under a compulsion to deceive the Financial Action Task Force and the international community. By giving Lashkar-e-Taiba a secular-sounding name, Pakistan sought to mask the religious extremism of its proxies and present the Resistance Front as an indigenous Kashmiri uprising.

TRF’s claim of responsibility was a fleeting moment of bravado. As international condemnation poured in and India started weighing diplomatic and military retaliation, Pakistan’s proxies backtracked. On cue from the ISI, the Lashkar-e-Taiba members released statements denouncing the assault, reiterating Pakistan’s official position that the massacre was a false flag operation by India intended to discredit Islamabad. Pakistan’s disinformation strategy is characterised by this back and forth approach: first, it claims responsibility for the attack to mobilise jihadist supporters, then it denies it to avoid accountability. But the world is not fooled. The TRF’s digital footprints, traced to handlers in Muzaffarabad and Karachi, and intelligence intercepts linking the attackers to LeT commanders like Saifullah Kasuri, expose Pakistan’s hand.

Preliminary investigations into the Pahalgam attack have unearthed a damning clue: the attackers wielded American-made M4 carbines alongside AK-47s. India does not use or import M4 rifles, but their presence in the hands of terrorists is no mystery. Since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, a flood of abandoned American weaponry has found its way to Pakistan-backed terror groups. LeT and JeM operatives, who fought alongside the Taliban, have acquired these arms, including the M4 rifles, for their proxy war in Kashmir. Pakistan’s role as a conduit for this lethal arsenal is highlighted by the fact that Indian security forces have recovered American-made weapons from terrorists of Pakistani origin, killed in encounters in Jammu and Kashmir, on multiple occasions. The use of M4s in the Pahalgam incident is a geopolitical indictment, not merely a  detail. Pakistan’s deep state has exploited the chaos in Afghanistan to arm its jihadist proxies, turning American weapons against Indian civilians. The M4s have given Pakistan away, shattering its narrative of innocence.

The Pahalgam massacre bears the chilling hallmark of LeT’s signature brutality, honed through years of training by Pakistan’s Special Services Group. Witnesses narrated a harrowing tale of methodical execution mirroring the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The precision and ruthlessness displayed in the Pahalgam carnage point towards the fact that only highly radicalised, indoctrinated operatives could commit such an abominable act and let there be no doubt about the fact that Pakistan’s military infrastructure is the crucible where these killers are forged. 

Pakistan’s disinformation campaign, peddled by the ISPR and amplified by LeT’s denials, has crumbled under scrutiny. The international community has roundly condemned the Pahalgam attack, with leaders from the UAE to the U.S. expressing solidarity with India. Saudi Arabia, a key Pakistani ally, denounced the attack stating that the Kingdom affirms its firm stance in rejecting all forms of violence, extremism, and targeting of civilians. Even Afghanistan’s foreign ministry, no friend of India, condemned the massacre as a threat to regional stability.  

Pakistan’s attempt to paint the attack as the results of an Indian conspiracy is laughably transparent. The evidence including the digital footprints, intelligence intercepts, and the weapons used, point unequivocally to LeT and its ISI handlers.

The Pahalgam massacre is not an isolated tragedy; it’s a fresh wound in Pakistan’s campaign to bleed India. The doctrine of a thousand cuts thrives on chaos, fear, and division, but its exposure in Baisaran Valley is a clarion call for accountability. Pakistan’s deep state cannot hide behind proxies like the TRF or platitudes about Kashmiri self-determination. The blood of twenty-six innocents stains their hands and no amount of ISPR spin can wash it away.

The world must recognize Pakistan for what it is: not a victim, not a partner, but a state that weaponises terror as a policy. The Pahalgam attack is a reminder that peace in Kashmir will remain elusive until Pakistan’s military-industrial complex is taken to task. For now, India mourns, but it also resolves. The perpetrators will face justice and Pakistan’s lies will be buried under the weight of truth.