One year after Operation Sindoor: The threat landscape has not disappeared

On the winter morning of January 9, 2026, an arms consignment dropped by a drone from Pakistani Punjab was recovered from a forward area near the International Border (IB) in Ghagwal area in Samba district of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K). The cache included two pistols, three magazines, 16 rounds, and a grenade. A packet wrapped in yellow tape was found on a stream bank and later opened with the assistance of a bomb disposal squad. The incident highlighted Samba’s continuing vulnerability to cross-border drone activity and the expanding use of unmanned aerial routes for arms smuggling.

The pattern did not remain confined to a single incident. On March 10, Security Forces launched fresh search operations after suspicious drone movement was reported during the intervening night of March 9 and 10 in adjoining areas along the International Border in Samba district. Officials stated that the suspected drone had originated from Pakistan, prompting coordinated operations by the Police and the Border Security Force (BSF) to check for possible airdropping of weapons or narcotics. Taken together, these recurring incidents underscore the evolving nature of cross-border tactics, with drones increasingly emerging as a preferred mechanism for sustaining militant logistics, narcotics trafficking and arms supply networks without requiring direct physical infiltration across the border.

Samba district directly faces Pakistan’s Shakargarh tehsil in Narowal district and parts of Sialkot district in Punjab province, including the Zafarwal, Chak Amru, and Pasrur belts that have historically figured in counter-infiltration assessments. This region forms part of the strategically sensitive “Shakargarh Bulge”, a protruding tract of Pakistani territory between the Ravi and Chenab rivers that has remained militarily significant since the 1965 and 1971 wars. The geography on both sides of the International Border is marked by thick vegetation, riverine tracts, cultivation belts and seasonal nullahs, making surveillance extremely challenging. On the Indian side, villages such as Supwal remain particularly vulnerable because infiltrators who manage to cross the border can rapidly access the National Highway 1 A and move deeper into the hinterland.

It was through this broader infiltration zone that, on the morning of 14 May 2002, three heavily armed militants infiltrated from Pakistan. After targeting a civilian bus, the attackers entered the Indian Army’s family residential quarters inside the Kaluchak military camp, killing 31 people, including soldiers, women and children. As an eyewitness to the attack and its aftermath, I recall that when the bodies of the militants were searched, pink colored cinema tickets from the nearby Pakistani city of Sialkot, internationally known for its sports goods industry, were reportedly found in their pockets. The detail stayed with me because it offered a chilling reminder of the immediacy and proximity of the cross-border infiltration route.

These facts become important to recollect as a year after Operation Sindoor, the larger strategic reality remains unchanged: India and Pakistan are far from any meaningful dialogue process, while the infrastructure of cross-border terrorism continues to exist. At a time when Pakistani diplomacy got a wind as it tried to mediate talks between Iran and the US there is a reality on the ground. Arms droppings through drones, the presence of launch pads across the Line of Control (LoC) and attempts at infiltration remain enduring features of the conflict landscape. This is compounded by the fact that on January 13, Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi stated that at least six terrorist camps remained active across the LoC and two across the International Border, with an estimated 100–150 terrorists present in these facilities. He reiterated that Operation Sindoor against cross-border terrorism remained ongoing.

Much like the past, any major terrorist attack retains the potential to rapidly escalate tensions between India and Pakistan. And the most vulnerable remains J&K. The region’s geography, its complex demographics and the deeply embedded nature of militancy make it unrealistic to assume that the threat can simply vanish.

Recent operations within the region further underline the persistence of physical militant infrastructure. On April 6, Pakistani Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operative Usman alias Khubaib was arrested in Srinagar district. A day later, four more LeT-linked operatives, including Pakistani terrorist Abdullah along with Mohammad Naqeeb Bhat, Adil Rashid Bhat and Ghulam Mohammad Mir were apprehended. The operation, which began on March 3, involved coordinated searches across 19 locations in J&K, Rajasthan and Haryana in collaboration with central agencies and police units from multiple states.

The present stalemate with Pakistan does not imply strategic and tactical helplessness. While quantitative metrics and violence figures are important in assessing the security landscape, they can sometimes obscure uncomfortable realities that continue to remain inadequately addressed. The Baisaran attack exposed precisely such vulnerabilities. Located nearly 220 kilometres from the Line of Control, the site of the attack raised difficult questions internationally about how Pakistan-backed militants were able to strike so deep inside the hinterland with such apparent ease.

At another level, the incident also revealed the consequences of fragmented institutional coordination under Jammu and Kashmir’s dual power structure. The tourist facility had been opened by the Tourism Department functioning under the elected Union Territory administration, while security clearances and law-and-order responsibilities remained under the police and security apparatus reporting to the Lieutenant-Governor. The apparent absence of seamless coordination between these parallel centres of authority appeared to create critical gaps in security assessment and preparedness. As a result, civilians were exposed in an area where adequate protective deployment was absent despite the prevailing threat environment and the broader history of militant activity in the region.

Instead of confronting this evolving reality with candour, the political narrative in recent years has often leaned heavily on claims of “normalcy”. The assertion that the abrogation of Article 370 has fundamentally transformed the security situation risks creating dangerous complacency. It also undercuts decades of painstaking institutional effort by the armed forces and local policing networks that together shaped the counter-insurgency architecture in Jammu and Kashmir.

The reality, however, is far more complex. In Jammu and Kashmir, it is often difficult to neatly separate local initiative from plans conceived and supported across the border. Militant operations frequently emerge through an interaction between external direction and local facilitation, making granular intelligence indispensable.

The recent Red Fort-related terror module investigation, though national in its implications and linked to Pakistan-backed networks, once again demonstrated the decisive importance of local intelligence gathering. In this case, an estranged girlfriend of one of the accused reportedly provided the initial lead that enabled investigators to move swiftly and unravel the network.

The problem is not merely rhetorical. Counter-terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir has always depended on granular local intelligence and trust-based partnerships with communities. In areas such as the Pir Panjal region, cooperation between local populations and security forces once played a critical role in disrupting LeT’s networks and militant movement routes into the Kashmir Valley. For a period, these corridors were transformed from militant transit zones into spaces of resilience. But trust is a perishable commodity. Once weakened, rebuilding it becomes extraordinarily difficult. A more grounded and sustainable strategy must therefore return to fundamentals. Technology and militarised responses can contain threats, but they cannot substitute for community trust, institutional sensitivity and sustained local engagement.

The current governance structure in the Union Territory also presents its own complications. With law and order directly under the Lieutenant-Governor’s administration, there are repeated concerns that local inputs and institutional knowledge are not always adequately absorbed into policymaking. Jammu and Kashmir’s realities are too layered and complex for overly centralised approaches. The institutional memory accumulated over decades by local stakeholders, police officers and field operatives cannot easily be replicated through top-down administrative control.

A credible assessment of the situation requires acknowledging that militancy in J&K remains an enduring challenge rather than treating every decline in violence as evidence of permanent resolution. Meaningful analysis should be based on recent and evolving trendlines, not comparisons with the peak violence of the 1990s or early 2000s.

Ultimately, the most authentic and strategically valuable counter terrorism strategy emerges not from official narratives alone, but from the lived experiences of people on the ground. Sustainable peace cannot be built through rhetorical posturing or carefully managed optics. It requires humility, analytical rigour and a willingness to listen to difficult truths.

India’s long-term credibility, both domestically and internationally, will depend not merely on asserting the existence of cross-border terrorism, but on demonstrating a sophisticated, grounded and fact-based understanding of the region’s realities. In a terrain as politically and socially complex as Jammu and Kashmir, security is not only about force projection; it is equally about trust, inclusion and institutional sensitivity.

At a time when the global war against terrorism has increasingly taken a backseat to narrowly defined geopolitical and strategic interests, India faces the challenge of building a more sustainable and credible counter-terrorism framework while simultaneously making a persuasive case before the international community. This becomes particularly important at a time when Pakistan’s diplomatic relevance has witnessed a relative upswing because of shifting regional equations, its geography adjoining West Asia, and renewed engagement by major powers driven by strategic and security compulsions. In such an environment, India’s case cannot rely solely on official assertions or rhetorical positioning. It requires demonstrating that the concerns emerging from Jammu and Kashmir are rooted in lived realities experienced by local communities themselves.

For this reason, local stakeholders must be placed front and centre in both policy formulation and international outreach. Genuine local voices, including those directly affected by terrorism, militancy and cross-border violence, carry a legitimacy and authenticity that official state narratives alone often cannot. In this context, the restoration of statehood to Jammu and Kashmir assumes significance not merely as a political commitment, but as an important national security imperative. A representative political structure with greater local accountability can improve institutional coordination, restore confidence among communities and ensure that ground realities are more effectively reflected in governance and security responses.

Granting statehood would also help blunt the argument, often amplified by separatist and Pakistani narratives, that Jammu and Kashmir is being administered directly by a BJP-led Centre without adequate local political agency, thereby contributing to alienation and disaffection. In a conflict theatre as sensitive as Jammu and Kashmir, durable stability is difficult to sustain in the absence of meaningful political participation and responsive local institutions.

Ultimately, it is from the ground itself that the most effective and preventive counter-terrorism strategy can emerge. Local participation, credible human intelligence networks, and responsive political institutions are essential not only for detecting and disrupting militant ecosystems before they translate into violence, but also for projecting credibility internationally. A counter-terrorism framework rooted in local realities sends the strongest possible signal globally that the fight against terrorism is not merely a state narrative, but one anchored in the experiences, aspirations and security concerns of the people most directly affected by it.

(The author has authored two books on J&K, including Uncovered face of militancy and Across the Line of Control)