Pulwama Attack Anniversary: How India’s Security Doctrine Changed, From Balakot to PRAHAAR

PRAHAAR conference: a ten-year plan, down to the police station Doctrine

Home Minister Amit Shah opened a national conference on PRAHAAR and called for a counter-terror mechanism built to last ten years, with its principles taken down to every police station and an automated response system at all levels. He launched an extradition portal; the ministry said 288 fugitives had been brought back from 36 countries between 2019 and 2026.

Why it matters: a policy written in Delhi only works if a district police station can act on it. The conference moved PRAHAAR from document to implementation.

PRAHAAR: India’s first national counter-terrorism policy Doctrine

Nine days after the seventh Pulwama anniversary, the Home Ministry released PRAHAAR, India’s first written national counter-terrorism policy and strategy. Its seven pillars run from prevention and proportionate response to human rights and rule of law, counter-radicalisation, international cooperation and recovery. Published summaries say it names state-sponsored cross-border terrorism, drones, CBRNE risks, organised-crime links, cryptocurrency and the dark web as threats, makes the IB’s Multi Agency Centre the hub for real-time intelligence sharing, the NSG the national intervention force and state police the first responders, and calls for a graded response to radicalisation, from counselling to prosecution.

Why it matters: for decades India’s counter-terror approach existed in laws, speeches and practice but not in one public document. PRAHAAR writes it down.

Seventh anniversary at Lethpora

The CRPF held a wreath-laying ceremony at the Lethpora memorial and observed a minute’s silence for the 40 personnel killed in 2019. Personnel donated more than 100 units of blood in Srinagar. Security across the Valley was tightened, with drone surveillance and highway patrols, a sign of how the anniversary itself is now treated as a security event.

NIA chargesheet: Pahalgam ‘planned and controlled from Pakistan’ Institutions

The NIA charged Lashkar-e-Taiba, its proxy The Resistance Front (TRF), LeT chief Hafiz Saeed and Lahore-based handler Sajid Jatt, along with the three dead gunmen and two Pahalgam men arrested in June 2025 for sheltering them. The agency described the attack as religion-based targeted killing planned from Pakistan. In July 2025 the United States had designated TRF a foreign terrorist organisation.

Operation Mahadev: the Pahalgam gunmen are killed Response

Security forces killed three militants in the Dachigam forest whom the government identified as the Pahalgam attackers. Amit Shah told the Lok Sabha that ballistic tests linked their weapons to the killings. The operation is a reminder that the doctrine has two tracks: the cross-border strike gets the headlines, but the network still has to be found and prosecuted at home.

Modi: ‘Operation Sindoor is the new normal’ Doctrine

In his first address after the fighting, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Operation Sindoor was now India’s policy against terrorism. He set out three principles: every terror attack will be answered on India’s terms, India will not accept nuclear blackmail, and it will not distinguish between terrorists and the governments that sponsor them. Terror and talks, he said, cannot go together.

Why it matters: this is the clearest public statement of deterrence by punishment that any Indian government has made.

Operation Sindoor: nine sites in four days of conflict Response

Fifteen days after Pahalgam, India struck nine sites linked to Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen, including JeM’s base at Bahawalpur and LeT’s at Muridke. The government called the strikes “focused, measured and non-escalatory” and said no Pakistani military facilities were targeted. Pakistan answered with artillery fire on the Line of Control, which killed civilians in Poonch, and waves of drones and missiles. India then hit several Pakistani air bases. Both sides agreed to stop firing on the afternoon of 10 May.

Note: India’s Chief of Defence Staff later acknowledged aircraft losses early in the conflict without giving a number, while rejecting Pakistan’s higher claims.

Pahalgam: 26 killed at Baisaran Attack

Gunmen came out of the forest around the Baisaran meadow near Pahalgam and shot tourists, singling out Hindu men, according to survivors. Twenty-six people died: 25 tourists, including a Nepali citizen, and Syed Adil Hussain Shah, a local pony operator killed trying to stop an attacker. The next day the Cabinet Committee on Security put the Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance, closed the Attari crossing and cancelled most visas for Pakistani nationals.

Why it matters: six years after Pulwama, this was the deadliest attack on civilians in Kashmir in years. It showed that falling numbers had not removed the capacity for mass-casualty terrorism.

The numbers fall, and Article 370 is upheld Institutions

The Home Ministry told Parliament that terrorist-initiated incidents in Jammu and Kashmir had fallen from 228 in 2018 to 41 by 15 November 2023, security-force deaths from 91 to 20 and civilian deaths from 55 to 13. Five days later the Supreme Court upheld the 2019 removal of Article 370. Violence also shifted: more attacks moved south of the Pir Panjal, into Rajouri, Poonch and later Kathua and Doda.

FATF takes Pakistan off its grey list Diplomacy

The Financial Action Task Force removed Pakistan from increased monitoring after it completed its action plans on terror financing and money laundering. India had used the grey-list process after Pulwama to press for action against groups such as JeM and LeT. The decision showed the limits of financial pressure: it can force legal changes but cannot by itself stop cross-border attacks.

The LoC ceasefire is restored Diplomacy

The Directors General of Military Operations of India and Pakistan agreed to strictly observe all ceasefire agreements along the Line of Control. After years of near-daily shelling, firing dropped sharply and largely held until the 2025 conflict.

Why it matters: deterrence and de-escalation can coexist. A quieter border made counter-infiltration easier while the larger threat of punishment stayed in place.

NIA chargesheet names Masood Azhar Institutions

The NIA filed its chargesheet in a Jammu court against 19 accused, including JeM chief Masood Azhar, his brothers Abdul Rauf Asghar and Ammar Alvi, and his nephew Mohammad Umar Farooq, whom investigators described as a key organiser. The chargesheet said some materials for the bomb were bought online. Seven accused had been arrested; six, including Farooq, had been killed in encounters.

New laws: individuals can be named as terrorists Law

Parliament amended the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act so that individuals, not just organisations, could be designated as terrorists, and allowed the NIA to seize property linked to terrorism. The NIA (Amendment) Act let the agency investigate offences against Indians or Indian interests abroad and added cyber-terrorism, human trafficking and some arms offences to its list. On 4 September the government named Masood Azhar, Hafiz Saeed, Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and Dawood Ibrahim. On 5 August, separately, it ended Jammu and Kashmir’s special status under Article 370.

The UN lists Masood Azhar Diplomacy

After blocking four attempts over a decade, China dropped its objection and the UN Security Council’s ISIL and Al-Qaida sanctions committee listed Masood Azhar, subjecting him to an asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo. It was the main diplomatic result of the Pulwama campaign.

Pakistan retaliates; a pilot is captured Attack

Pakistan’s air force struck near military sites in Jammu and Kashmir. In the air battle an Indian MiG-21 was shot down and Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was captured; Pakistan returned him at the Wagah border on 1 March. The same morning an IAF Mi-17 helicopter was brought down by an Indian air-defence missile over Budgam, killing six airmen and a civilian. The IAF later acknowledged the error.

Why it matters: the crisis showed that escalation could be managed but not fully controlled. Jointness, air-defence identification and secure communications became lessons that resurfaced in 2025.

Balakot: the first air strike across the border since 1971 Response

Twelve days after Pulwama, IAF Mirage 2000 jets struck what India said was Jaish-e-Mohammed’s largest training camp. Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale called it a “non-military pre-emptive action”, based on intelligence that JeM was planning more suicide attacks, and said civilian casualties had been avoided. Pakistan said the bombs fell on empty forest. The number killed has never been independently verified.

Why it matters: unlike the 2016 strikes across the Line of Control, Balakot crossed the international border into undisputed Pakistani territory. It established that a major attack could bring a response deep inside Pakistan.

Trade, diplomacy and the NIA move in Diplomacy

The day after the attack the Cabinet Committee on Security withdrew the Most Favoured Nation status India had given Pakistan in 1996, and duties on Pakistani imports were raised to 200%. India briefed foreign envoys to build pressure for JeM to be sanctioned. On 20 February the NIA re-registered the case and began tracing the vehicle, the explosives and the handlers.

Pulwama: 40 CRPF personnel killed at Lethpora Attack

A convoy moving personnel back to the Valley after a highway closure was passing Lethpora when Adil Ahmad Dar, a 19-year-old local who had joined Jaish-e-Mohammed, drove a car packed with explosives into a bus. Forty CRPF personnel were killed, the deadliest single attack on Indian forces in Kashmir in three decades. JeM claimed responsibility within hours with a video of the bomber.

Why it matters: a vehicle-borne suicide bombing by a local recruit, directed from across the border, exposed gaps at every layer: intelligence, convoy movement, explosives control and the recruitment pipeline.

Border technology before Pulwama Institutions

The Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System began pilot stretches on the Jammu border, linking cameras, radar and sensors to a command centre. It shows that the shift from fences to sensor networks was under way before Pulwama, which accelerated it rather than starting it.

Uri and the surgical strikes Response

After militants attacked an army brigade headquarters at Uri, special forces crossed the Line of Control to hit launch pads, and the Director General of Military Operations announced the operation publicly. It was the first time India had openly claimed a cross-LoC strike.

Why it matters: Pulwama was a turning point, not a starting point. The idea that cross-border terror would bring cross-border consequences was set in 2016; Balakot extended it past the LoC.