Shifting gears: India's changing response to cross-border terrorism

In the dead of the night leading up to May 7th, 2025, India carried out missile strikes in Pakistan to avenge the lives of those killed in the Pahalgam terror attacks. A military response from the Indian side to a terror attack of this magnitude was imminent. India’s official statement says that these attacks were ‘non-escalatory’ and would act as a deterrent for any future terrorist attacks on Indian soil. 

In the official press briefings, the Indian armed forces highlighted major terror camps operating across Pakistan, out of which nine locations were primarily targeted. 

Figure 1: Terrorist Camps highlighted in the press briefing by the Indian Armed Forces

The nine locations claimed to be terrorist camps in Pakistan’s territory by the Indian armed forces are-

1. Sawai Nala Camp, which is reported to be a training center for Lashkar-e-Toiba

2. Syed na Bilal Camp, Muzzafarabad, a training camp for Jaish-e-Mohammad 

3. Kotli, the base camp of Lashkar-e-Toiba 

4. Barnala Camp is located 9 km away from the Line of Control and is reported to be a training center for terrorist outfits

5. Abbas Camp, Kotli, located 13 km from the Line of Control and a training camp  for Lashkar-e-Toiba

6. Sarjal Camp, Sialkot, terrorists responsible for the March 2025 J&K Police attack operated from this camp 

7. Mehmoona Jaya Camp, Sialkot, the training camp for Hizbul Mujahideen and responsible for launching the attack on the Pathankot airforce base

8. Markaz Taiba, Muridke, terrorists were trained to carry out the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks from this base

9. Markaz Subhanallah, Bahawalpur, is the headquarters of Jaish-e-Mohammad and the center for recruitment, training, and indoctrination. 

Figure 2: 9 out of the 21 identified targets were attacked by the Indian military 

The attack on the headquarters of Jaish-e-Mohammad in Bahawalpur claimed the lives of ten family members and four aids of the Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar. Bahawalpur served as a prime location for Jaise-e-Mohammad because the mosque in the facility is said to be the center for ideological indoctrination and recruitment of terrorists under the leadership of Masood Azhar. The other major location targeted was Muridke, which held strategic importance for being the headquarters of Lashkar-e-Toiba. The Resistance Front (TRF), which initially claimed responsibility for the attacks in Pahalgam, has been linked to Lashkar-e-Toiba. Muridke was the major base for the operations of this organization and also served as a recruitment center. 

A shift in policy 

‘Operation Sindoor,’ as the strikes were codenamed, is precisely one of the largest counter-terrorism operations conducted by India in response to terrorist activities. Over the years, India has been increasing its threshold of military response to terrorist activities, ranging from surgical strikes and the Balakot strikes to the recent precision strikes across different terrorist strongholds in Pakistan. Diplomatically, as well, India took an assertive decision to keep one of the most critical bilateral treaties, the Indus Waters Treaty, in abeyance, which had drastic consequences for Pakistan, a country that depends entirely on the waters of the Indus river systems to feed its people.  

These moves signal a dramatic shift in India’s policy towards terrorism and its bilateral relations with Pakistan. It shows that India is now moving from a moderate to an assertive stance when it comes to dealing with terrorist activities on its soil. Happymon Jacob, in his latest piece for India’s World, highlights a distinction between the ‘sub-conventional’ terror attacks and a ‘conventional’ military response. He points out that while previously a conventional military response to sub-conventional aggression such as terrorism was not a mainstream policy of the Indian state, it is widely becoming so now. A lot of reasons can be attributed to this shift, the most significant being the changing nature of terrorist attacks over the past few years. Since the Mumbai attacks of 2008, the Pahalgam attack of April 22nd is perhaps the most targeted killing of civilians in a terrorist operation. This enraged the sentiments of the Indian populace and led to warranted domestic pressure on the Indian government to retaliate with equal measure on the terrorist outfits, if not more. 

Will deterrence prevail?

While the Indian side sees the terrorist attacks as the tipping point of aggression, Pakistan, on the other hand, calls India the aggressor for carrying out the strikes. Alarm bells also rang for the international community, which is witnessing these two nuclear-powered states at loggerheads once again. With these precision strikes conducted by India and the resulting attacks by Pakistan in India’s Jammu and Kashmir, tensions are running high in the subcontinent. 

A conventional conflict between two nuclear-powered states often gets to the point of threats of the use of nuclear weapons conditional upon certain military excesses. The same happened with India and Pakistan, with Pakistan shooting the nuclear threat in the days after India suspended its commitments to the Indus Waters Treaty. The question, however, remains: how much of this rhetorical threat would translate into action? If we go by the logic of deterrence, a nuclear escalation of this conflict is unlikely. 

When it comes to terrorist proxies and the cross-border operations of terrorist organizations, this military action by India will convert non-traditional aggression, i.e., terrorism, into a traditional security threat with a looming bilateral war. As India claims, it has targeted major bases and the hotbeds of the main terrorist organizations working across the border, and it may serve to deter at least any further terrorist operations on Indian soil for the time to come. However, the fact that Pakistan vehemently denied involvement in the Pahalgam attacks and India did not produce dossiers of evidence for the international community to support its claims of Pakistan’s involvement- shows that India had decided to respond with military strikes without the need for any approval from the international community. 

The recent turn of events has fractured the relationship between India and Pakistan for the time to come. India has made it clear with these precision strikes that any terror attack sponsored by Pakistan would be considered as an act of aggression warranting military action from India. The disengagement, de-escalation, and any dialogue from this point on would redefine how India deals with Pakistan and vice versa. The only way out of this conflict is through a declared ceasefire and diplomatic dialogue to negotiate the terms of de-escalation. However, any disengagement, de-escalation, or dialogue from this point on would redefine how India deals with Pakistan and vice versa.