PAKISTAN’S PROXY WAR IN A DIGITAL SUIT

In Kashmir, we have long learned that violence does not always arrive with slogans on its lips or guns in plain sight. Sometimes it comes quietly—educated, well-spoken, professionally dressed—moving through hospitals, offices and digital spaces with ease. The recent revelations from the Red Fort blast investigation, pointing to a so-called “white-collar terror module” using ghost SIMs and encrypted applications, force us to confront an uncomfortable truth: terror today often hides behind respectability.

As a Kashmiri, this revelation does not shock me. What it does is wound me—because once again, the region and its people are dragged into a narrative shaped far away, by handlers who never have to bury their dead or live with the aftermath. The investigation’s assertion that coordination took place with handlers based in Pakistan is not new information for Kashmiris. It is an old pattern, repeated with new tools.

Pakistan’s security establishment has, for decades, treated Kashmir not as a society of living people but as a strategic file—one to be opened, exploited and weaponised when convenient. The shift from militants crossing borders with rifles to operatives coordinating through encrypted apps and untraceable SIM cards is not ideological evolution; it is tactical adaptation. The objective remains the same: destabilisation without responsibility.

What is particularly disturbing in this case is the profile of those allegedly involved. Educated professionals—doctors, individuals trained to preserve life—are accused of participating in a network designed to destroy it. This is not resistance. This is betrayal: of profession, of ethics and of the very people in whose name violence is falsely justified.

For Kashmiris, this matters deeply. Every act of terror carried out under the banner of Kashmir tightens surveillance, hardens attitudes and narrows democratic space within the Valley. It is the Kashmiri civilian who pays the price—through suspicion at checkpoints, through delayed justice, through the constant need to prove innocence in a conflict not of their making. Pakistan’s proxy war does not liberate Kashmiris; it imprisons them in an endless cycle of grief and misrepresentation.

At the same time, it is important to speak with clarity and restraint about India’s role. India is not a monolith, nor is it beyond criticism. But as a constitutional state, India bears responsibility through law, due process and institutional accountability. Terror attacks like the Red Fort blast are crimes against civilians and against peace. Investigating them thoroughly and transparently is not oppression; it is obligation. The legitimacy of the Indian state, however, rests on ensuring that counter-terror measures do not become collective punishment, and that Kashmiri voices are not drowned out by security-centric discourse.

Kashmiris do not need to be “managed” through fear, nor “saved” through militancy. What we need is dignity—space to speak for ourselves without intermediaries in Rawalpindi or rhetoric imposed from television studios. The continued involvement of Pakistan-based handlers in such plots undermines genuine political dialogue and sabotages any possibility of regional peace. It also exposes the moral bankruptcy of those who claim to care for Kashmir while using its youth and its name as expendable assets.

The use of ghost SIMs and encrypted apps may appear sophisticated, but the thinking behind them is old and cynical. It assumes Kashmiris are perpetually angry, perpetually recruitable and perpetually disposable. This assumption is wrong. Kashmir has suffered too much to be romantic about violence, especially violence orchestrated from across borders by people untouched by its consequences.

There is also a lesson here beyond borders. Technology is neutral; intent is not. Encrypted platforms, digital anonymity and professional credentials can either serve humanity or hollow it out. When states fail to cooperate against terror and when terror networks misuse openness to sow chaos, ordinary people become collateral damage.

For Kashmiris, the path forward lies neither in Pakistan’s shadow wars nor in silence enforced by fear. It lies in insisting on truth, rejecting violence in all its disguises and demanding accountability from all who claim power over our lives—foreign handlers, local collaborators and state institutions alike.

Terror wearing a suit is still terror. And Kashmir, weary but resilient, deserves better than to be spoken for by bombs, binaries or borders.