For the civilised world of the 21st century, the state of Pakistan is a liability without any hope of redemption. For India, Pakistan is a stubborn neighbour, which breeds terrorism to bleed the very country it owes its existence to, all in the name of religion.
Even after more than 75 years of its birth, socio-economic progress and prosperity remain a distant dream for the citizens of Pakistan as the military squanders away the nation’s resources on breeding terrorists and terrorism. From Abbottabad to Islamabad, the nation is the nucleus for global terrorism, fueled by Islamic radicalisation.
The question of Pakistan is before India again, after the Pahalgam attack. While always a prevailing threat, Pakistan, in the last decade, has been reduced to a muted background score as India continued taking giant strides as the third-largest economy of the world in the making.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, early on in his tenure, tried building bridges with Pakistan, which included an unannounced trip to Lahore, but the pursuit of dialogue was disrupted by the prevalence of terrorism. The Uri Attack in September 2016 was the point of no return for this government, merely two years after it took over.
Not willing to pursue an endless dialogue, unlike its predecessor, the Modi Government answered back in the language Pakistan best understands. The first answer came after Uri, and the second one followed the Pulwama terror attack in February 2019. After Pahalgam, another answer from India looks imminent.
India’s hardening stance against Pakistan is not without reason. Pakistan has a long history of supporting, harbouring, and exporting terrorism, making it a significant global destabilising force. For decades, its territory has served as a base for cross-border terrorism, insurgency, and extremist ideologies.
In 2018, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif implied the government’s involvement in the 2008 Mumbai attacks by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based terrorist group. Former President Pervez Musharraf admitted that Pakistani forces trained militants to fight in Indian-administered Kashmir, deliberately overlooking their activities to pressure India into negotiations and gain international attention.
Recently, Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif acknowledged Pakistan’s three-decade support for terrorist groups, describing it as a mistake linked to US-led foreign policy.
A widely acknowledged fact in the Indian policy circles is that Pakistan’s military inculcates terrorists in Pakistan and cultivates terrorists in Kashmir to destabilise the region. In the short run, their objective is to prolong Kashmir’s struggles against terrorism, but in the long run, they want India to grapple with the same problem, but at a far larger scale.
Pakistan is also guilty of fomenting trouble elsewhere. In Afghanistan, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has been extensively documented for its support of the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network, providing them with funding, training, and safe havens. These groups have carried out numerous deadly attacks on Afghan civilians, government targets, and international forces, including the 2008 Indian Embassy bombing in Kabul and the 2011 attack on the US Embassy in Kabul.
In her book, senior journalist Carlotta Gall revealed that the 2008 embassy bombing was not the work of rogue ISI agents but was sanctioned and monitored by the most senior officials in Pakistani intelligence.
In April 2025, investigations into the 2024 Moscow concert hall attack uncovered a potential Pakistan connection, with Russian authorities identifying the mastermind as a Tajik national and probing links to Pakistani networks for possible logistical or ideological support.
Meanwhile, in Iran, the Pakistan-based Sunni extremist group Jaish ul-Adl has repeatedly targeted Iranian security forces in Sistan and Baluchestan province, prompting Iran to launch missile and drone strikes on January 16, 2024, against alleged Jaish ul-Adl hideouts in Pakistan’s Balochistan province. Iran has consistently accused Pakistan of sheltering and failing to curb these Sunni militants, who conduct cross-border attacks, exacerbating regional tensions.
The 7 July 2005 London bombings, executed by four British Islamist terrorists, were connected to Pakistan through training and indoctrination. Three of the perpetrators—Mohammad Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer, and Germaine Lindsay—travelled to Pakistan between 2003 and 2005, where they are believed to have received extremist training and ideological grooming that contributed to the planning and execution of the deadly attacks. Ironically, the United Kingdom hosts a lot of citizens from Pakistan.
The 2011 U.S. raid that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, revealed significant lapses in Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts, as bin Laden had lived undetected for years in a compound near the Pakistan Military Academy, fuelling suspicions of ISI collusion. Perhaps, the only reason Pakistan got away was because of its role in assisting America during the consecutive wars fought in Afghanistan between the 1980s and 2000s.
Additionally, Pakistan’s ISI has been accused of supporting Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), a banned Islamist group behind the 2016 Gulshan café attack in Dhaka, which killed 20 hostages. In 2015, Bangladeshi authorities expelled Pakistani diplomats caught transferring funds to JMB operatives.
A 2020 intelligence report further exposed ISI’s role in training 40 Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar camps through JMB for infiltration into India. JMB’s network, funded via Gulf-based NGOs and Pakistani intermediaries, extends across Bangladesh and India, with sleeper cells in states like West Bengal and Kerala, highlighting Pakistan’s alleged use of transnational proxies to destabilise regional rivals.
Pakistan’s persistent denials of sponsoring terrorism are overshadowed by evidence of a deep-rooted military and intelligence network that has fuelled decades of jihadist violence across South Asia. The country hosts numerous terror training camps in provinces such as Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Waziristan, and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, operated by groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Hizbul Mujahideen, and ISIS-Khorasan.
These camps serve as hubs for radicalisation, weapons training, and suicide mission preparation, often with the involvement of ex-Pakistani Army personnel who lend military expertise to enhance the lethality of these operations.
Former President Pervez Musharraf further confirmed Pakistan’s role, acknowledging that Kashmiris were trained as mujahideen in Pakistan to fight Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir, while describing global terrorists like Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and Jalaluddin Haqqani as Pakistan’s “heroes.”
Even during the 1990s, when a lot many terrorists surrendered in the valley, making up for Force Ikhwan thereafter, the role of the ISI and Pakistan’s Army in training terrorists was highlighted.
Today, in 2025, India’s patience is beginning to run out, and even the world has grown tired of supporting Pakistan through its economic turmoil. President Donald Trump recently remarked that India and Pakistan will have to sort out their differences one way or the other. A few months ago, Trump, during his campaign, had recalled in a podcast how PM Modi was livid and wanted to take stern action against Pakistan, presumably after the 2019 Pulwama attack.
Many decades later, Pakistan’s charade is before the world. Unlike before, when the terrorist nation shielded itself behind the Western powers, Pakistan has no sympathisers left, except those who see its feud against India as a religious war, like Turkey.
However, for the majority world, the nucleus of global terrorism warrants a permanent fix. The responsibility falls upon India, for the sake of Kashmir and the rest of India, for its 140 Crore citizens, and for the rest of the world.
(Tushar Gupta is Delhi based journalist and a political commentator)
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