We Sri Lankans have a particular relationship with the word “anniversary.” Every year on April 21, our island falls quiet. Churches that were bombed in 2019 hold memorial services. Families who lost someone in the Easter Sunday attacks light candles in the dark. We know, perhaps better than most, that a year does not heal a wound — it only sharpens your understanding of how deep it runs. Today, it is India’s turn to stand before that kind of grief. One year since the massacre at Baisaran Valley, the meadow near Pahalgam where 26 civilians were shot dead in cold blood, the questions that matter most still demand honest answers.
What happened on April 22, 2025, was not a spontaneous act of rage. It was a surgical strike on an idea — the idea that Jammu and Kashmir was returning to normal. The valley had welcomed nearly 3 million tourists in 2024 alone. Newlywed couples, families, and holidaymakers had begun filling the hotels of Pahalgam, Gulmarg, and Sonmarg. The tourism industry had been booming since the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019, and analysts say the ISI’s calculated intent was to unleash Lashkar-e-Taiba to hurt that very sector. The massacre was designed not only to kill people but to kill confidence — and for a brief, brutal moment, it worked. Bookings were cancelled overnight at hotels across Pahalgam, Gulmarg, and Sonmarg, leaving owners, guides, and shopkeepers to absorb losses running into crores of rupees.
The horror of the attack itself is almost impossible to narrate without flinching. Armed with M4 carbines and AK-47s, the militants entered Baisaran Valley through surrounding forests. They singled out the men, asked them about their religion before firing, and in some cases instructed tourists to recite the Islamic declaration of faith to identify non-Muslims. Newlywed men were shot point-blank in front of their wives. This was not insurgency. This was theatre — a performance of religious supremacy directed by handlers safely across the border.
Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif, pressed on his country’s conduct in a Sky News interview, appeared to concede that Pakistan had supported terrorist groups for more than three decades — framing it as doing the West’s “dirty work.” That admission, offered almost casually in an interview, is among the most significant confessions in the modern history of South Asian terrorism. Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf had made a similar concession years earlier, acknowledging that his government trained militant groups for deployment in Kashmir and turned a blind eye because it wanted to pressure India into negotiations. What had once been whispered is now, apparently, spoken aloud.
The global trail of Pakistani-linked terrorism is long and still growing. In the weeks before the Pahalgam massacre, India had secured the extradition of Tahawwur Rana — a former Pakistan Army officer convicted in the United States for supporting the 2008 Mumbai attacks — a case
Pakistan’s own judicial system had quietly buried for over a decade. Pakistan also successfully blocked any mention of TRF in a UN Security Council release after the Pahalgam attack, shielding a group it publicly claims not to recognise as illegal. These are not the actions of a nation fighting terrorism. These are the actions of a nation managing it.
India’s response came swiftly. On the night of May 6–7, 2025, India launched Operation Sindoor, firing 24 precision missiles over 25 minutes, destroying nine terrorist training camps, weapon stores, and command centres across Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The strikes hit the Jaish-e-Mohammed headquarters in Bahawalpur and Lashkar-e-Taiba’s top training facility in Muridke.
For Sri Lanka, this narrative is uncomfortably familiar. Our Easter Sunday bombers drew ideological inspiration from ISIS and were radicalised through networks stretching beyond our shores. The bombing of churches on Christianity’s holiest day — like the targeting of Hindu tourists in a meadow during peak season — was a statement about whose lives matter less. Both attacks weaponised religion. Both targeted places associated with joy, prayer, and peace. Both were designed to devastate economies dependent on tourism and public confidence. ISIS announced new branches in both Pakistan and India in the months following our Easter tragedy, signalling that South Asia was becoming an increasingly active frontier for transnational terror networks.
What Pahalgam teaches us — what Easter Sunday already taught us — is that terrorism left unanswered at its source does not diminish. It evolves, it rebrands, and it waits for the next tourist season. The international community cannot afford selective memory or diplomatic politeness when confronted with a state that openly shelters the architects of mass murder. As Sri Lanka continues its own slow journey toward justice for our 260 dead, we stand in full solidarity with the families of Baisaran Valley. Their loss is our loss. And their demand for accountability is one that every peace-loving nation in this region must amplify — loudly, together, and without delay.