PAKISTAN’S ADDICTION TO TERRORISM AND KASHMIR’S FINAL BREAK FROM ITS SHADOW

For thirty years, Pakistan has operated under dangerous illusion: that terrorism can be polished into a diplomatic tool, exported as a political argument and disguised as a liberation movement. Kashmir became the playground for this delusion. Rawalpindi’s generals believed they could bleed India “through thousand cuts” and sculpt the Valley’s destiny with rifles handed over to boys who barely understood the cause they were told to die for. But the Valley has changed. Kashmiris have changed. India has changed. The only thing that has not changed is Pakistan’s addiction to terrorism, the only export that its collapsing state machinery still manages to produce with consistency.

The evidence of Pakistan’s complicity is not up for debate; it is carved into the very soil of Kashmir. Every infiltration route mapped by the Indian Army, every GPS recovered from neutralised terrorists, every recorded intercept from PoK control rooms, every confession from captured militants points unmistakably to Pakistan’s military establishment. Behind every major massacre is the same signature, written in the same ink of cowardice: Wandhama, where Kashmiri Pandits were slaughtered; Nadimarg, where twenty-four Kashmiri Pandits were executed; Chittisinghpura, where thirty-five Sikhs were killed on the eve of President Clinton’s visit; Kupwara’s repeated bloodshed and the targeted killings that tore apart Kashmiri families for refusing to bow to Pakistan’s script. These were not acts of insurgency but massacres designed to engineer communal divides, crush local confidence and keep Kashmir burning for Pakistan’s benefit.

Pakistan claims to fight for Kashmiris, yet it is responsible for killing more Kashmiris than any other force in the conflict. Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammed, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Hizbul Mujahideen—all brainchildren of the ISI—did not come to protect Kashmir; they came to destroy it. Their actions reveal the truth: Pakistan’s real interest was never Kashmiri Muslim or Kashmir’s freedom but Kashmir’s usefulness of its land.

The world has not forgotten where Osama bin Laden was found: living comfortably in Abbottabad, barely a stone’s throw from Pakistan’s premier military academy. Nor has the world forgotten Hafiz Saeed’s open rallies in Lahore, Masood Azhar’s resurrection after a theatrically staged “ban” or Pakistan’s repeated lies to FATF (Financial Action Task Force) while continuing to shelter UN-designated terrorists. Even Pakistan’s former diplomats, ministers and military insiders have admitted publicly that the country’s establishment has relied on “non-state actors” as strategic assets. These are not allegations. These are confessions.

And yet, despite Pakistan’s best efforts, its project in Kashmir is collapsing. Indian security forces, working with unprecedented intelligence coordination, have decimated terror networks. The infiltration grid has been shattered. Pakistani terrorists rarely survive more than a few days once they cross the Line of Control. Recruitment in the Valley has plummeted and local support for militancy has evaporated as families recognise Pakistan’s game for what it is: a pipeline of death disguised as ideology.

The Indian Army, the JKP, the CRPF and intelligence agencies have paid an immeasurable price to protect ordinary Kashmiris. Officers like Col Ashutosh Sharma, Maj Rohit Sharma, Maj Sandeep Unnikrishnan Ummar Fayaz Parray, SP Tejinder Singh, DSP Aman Thakur, DSP Humayun Bhatt, DSP Shally Singh, DSP Manjit Singh and numerous others did not fall defending territory; they fell defending civilians Pakistan wanted to silence. Their sacrifices have changed the arc of the Valley. They have delivered what Pakistan feared most: a Kashmir that refuses to be radicalised.

Meanwhile, India has invested in the Valley’s future. Massive road links, tunnels cutting through impossible mountains, new medical colleges, tourism booms, film shoots returning, innovation hubs, sports academies, youth entrepreneurship—this is the Kashmir Pakistan never wanted the world to see. A Kashmir choosing progress over propaganda. A Kashmir refusing to be Pakistan’s battlefield. A Kashmir stepping into India’s mainstream with dignity, voice and ambition.

Pakistan, by contrast, is imploding under the weight of the very terrorism it once celebrated. Its economy is in ruins, its institutions are hollowed out and its society has been hijacked by the extremists it once cultivated. It has become a cautionary tale for the world: a state that fed snakes for decades and is now surprised to find itself surrounded by venom.

The Valley sees this with clarity. It has understood that Pakistan’s promises were fraudulent, its intentions self-serving and its strategy catastrophic for Kashmiris. Pakistan wanted instability; India delivered stability. Pakistan wanted division; India strengthened unity. Pakistan wanted Kashmir frozen in time; India pushed it towards the future. The contrast is so stark that even Pakistan’s propaganda machinery has begun to collapse under the burden of irrelevance.

Kashmir is rejecting Pakistan not out of fear but out of awareness. The new generation knows that peace, development, education and opportunity come from India’s side of the border, not Pakistan’s. They know that terror does not liberate; it only enslaves. The Valley today stands at a historic turning point and for once, the choice is clear.

Pakistan can continue to cling to its fantasies but they are fantasies nonetheless. Kashmir is no longer listening. Pakistan’s dream of weaponizing the Valley has died, not because India crushed it alone but because Kashmiris themselves buried it. The future of the Valley lies with peace, stability and national integration. Pakistan’s role is now reduced to what it always should have been: none.