Some disappeared are released, broken by torture. Some are formally charged. Some are killed and their bodies dumped.

Some human rights crises burst into international consciousness through a single image, a single video, a single act of resistance that the world cannot ignore. Other crises unfold in the dark, year after year, building a pile of unaddressed suffering that grows so high it becomes invisible. Balochistan belongs to the second category. It is the most underreported sustained human rights crisis in modern South Asia, and the international community’s silence on it is one of the diplomatic failures of our time.

The numbers, when assembled, are difficult to dismiss. The Baloch Yakjehti Committee documented over 1,250 cases of enforced disappearance in 2025. The Human Rights Council of Balochistan recorded 1,455 cases in the same year. Paank, the human rights wing of the Baloch National Movement, documented 95 enforced disappearances in November 2025 alone, along with 21 cases of severe torture and 20 extrajudicial killings. These figures, reflecting only what could be verified, suggest that what is happening in Balochistan is not occasional repression but a sustained campaign of state violence against a population.

The Pattern of Disappearances

The mechanism of enforced disappearance in Balochistan follows a well-documented pattern. Pakistani security forces, operating in plain clothes or in uniform, conduct raids on homes, often at night, and take individuals away without warrants, charges, or notification of family members. The detained person enters a network of informal detention centres run by the army or intelligence services, where they may be held for weeks, months, or years without external contact.

Some of the disappeared are eventually released, often visibly broken by torture, with explicit warnings against speaking publicly about their experience. Some are formally charged after extended periods in incommunicado detention and transferred to regular prison. Some are killed during their detention, with their bodies dumped near roads or in remote areas, in what Baloch activists call kill and dump operations. And some simply vanish, never accounted for, leaving families to wait indefinitely for information that does not come.

The targets of disappearance are not, by and large, militants. They are students, lecturers, journalists, doctors, lawyers, and human rights activists. Mahrang Baloch, the woman human rights defender who has emerged as the most prominent voice of the movement, is a medical doctor. Many of her colleagues in the Baloch Yakjehti Committee come from professional and academic backgrounds. The pattern is one of targeting the educated, articulate, and organisationally capable members of Baloch civil society, not just suspected separatists.

Some disappeared are released, broken by torture. Some are formally charged. Some are killed and their bodies dumped. Some simply vanish, never accounted for, leaving families to wait indefinitely.

The Recent Escalation

The crisis in Balochistan has escalated sharply since 2024. The triggering events have included a March 2025 attack by Baloch separatists on a passenger train, after which Pakistani authorities launched broad sweeps under the Counter Terrorism Department and arrested or disappeared several prominent Baloch human rights defenders. In response to peaceful protests organised against these arrests, Quetta police stormed a Baloch Yakjehti Committee gathering at the University of Balochistan in March 2025. A subsequent sit-in, organised by Mahrang Baloch and other activists, was raided by police using batons and tear gas at five-thirty in the morning.

The pattern continued through 2025 and into 2026. The provincial government’s approval of the Balochistan Prevention, Detention and Deradicalisation Rules 2025, signed off by Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti, was understood by human rights organisations as a state attempt to legalise the disappearance system that had been operating informally for years. The new rules permit the designation of individuals as suspects subject to interrogation in detention centres, formalising what had previously been an extra-legal practice.

Federal-level changes have made the situation worse. Amendments to Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997 now allow law enforcement to detain individuals for up to three months without charge or judicial oversight. This power has been used repeatedly against Mahrang Baloch and other Baloch Yakjehti Committee activists. The legal framework that emerged in 2025 essentially provides Pakistani authorities with broad discretion to detain whoever they wish for as long as they wish, with minimal accountability.

The International Response Gap

The international response to Balochistan has been thin compared to the scale of the crisis. UN human rights experts have issued statements. Some Western governments have raised concerns in private diplomatic channels. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have published reports. But there has been no sustained international campaign comparable to those organised around other comparable crises. There has been no UN Security Council attention. There have been no targeted sanctions against the Pakistani officials responsible. There has been no equivalent of the Magnitsky-style measures that Western states use for other human rights abusers.

The reasons for this gap are partly geopolitical. Pakistan has been treated as an important state by various Western governments, by China, and by Saudi Arabia. Each of these relationships has imposed costs on the willingness of those states to confront Pakistan publicly on its conduct in Balochistan. But the gap is not just about external geopolitics. It is also about the difficulty of access. Foreign journalists are largely barred from Balochistan. Foreign human rights observers face severe restrictions. The information space is, by Pakistani design, opaque. As a result, what is happening in Balochistan does not generate the kind of viral images and stories that drive sustained international attention.

This dynamic has allowed the Pakistani state to operate in Balochistan with a degree of impunity that would not be tolerated anywhere with greater external scrutiny. The pattern of disappearances has continued for over two decades. The international response has been incremental concern, rarely translating into structural pressure.

What Operation Sindoor Changed

Operation Sindoor, indirectly, has begun to change the international information environment around Pakistan. The detailed exposure of Pakistan’s relationship with Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba during the May 2025 conflict, combined with international attention to the Pahalgam massacre, has raised broader questions about the Pakistani state’s conduct. Some of those questions extend naturally to Balochistan. If Pakistan’s security establishment is willing to host UN-designated terrorists in major cities, what is it willing to do to its own citizens in marginalised provinces?

Indian diplomatic engagement with international human rights bodies has also become more sophisticated. The contrast between India’s open society in Kashmir, where journalists work and tourists travel, and Pakistan’s closed system in Balochistan has been highlighted in international forums by Indian representatives in ways that previously felt heavy-handed but now resonate more credibly.

The Baloch movement itself has become more articulate, more organised, and more capable of presenting its case in international languages. Mahrang Baloch’s prominence as a face of the movement has helped. So has the work of diaspora communities in Europe, North America, and the Gulf, who have built advocacy networks that did not exist a decade ago.

These developments are early. They have not yet translated into the structural international pressure that would force a change in Pakistani conduct. But they represent a shift in the information landscape that, if sustained, may eventually force the world to look more carefully at what has been happening in Balochistan for far too long. The first step is to refuse to look away. Operation Sindoor, by exposing what Pakistan does abroad, may help sustain attention on what Pakistan does at home. That is a small consolation for the families of the missing. It is not nothing.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

The international community has, for too long, accepted Pakistan’s victim narrative at face value. The reasoning has often been geopolitical.

Every time the world confronts Pakistan with evidence of its support for terrorism, it responds with the same script. It is a victim of terrorism, not a sponsor. Its neighbours are out to defame it. The groups operating from its soil are rogue actors, beyond state control. The script has worn thin. Operation Sindoor, in May 2025, demolished it.

The Indian airstrikes on the night of May 6 to 7, 2025, did not target shadowy hideouts in remote tribal regions. They targeted Bahawalpur, a city of nearly a million people in central Punjab, well within Pakistan’s settled and policed heartland. They targeted Muridke, the sprawling Lashkar-e-Taiba complex on the outskirts of Lahore. They struck nine sites in total, four in Pakistan proper and five in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. The locations told their own story. These were not camps that Pakistan had failed to find. These were camps that Pakistan had built.

The Family Business of Terror

Consider the case of Jaish-e-Mohammed, the group whose Bahawalpur headquarters India struck on May 7. Jaish was founded in 2000 by Masood Azhar, a man Pakistan released from Indian custody in December 1999 in exchange for hostages on a hijacked plane. According to multiple accounts cited by Pakistani journalists and Western researchers, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate paraded Azhar through Pakistan after his release on a fundraising tour, and helped him stand up the new outfit.

Pervez Musharraf, who served as Pakistan’s president from 2001 to 2008, admitted in a 2019 interview that Jaish-e-Mohammed had carried out attacks in India on the instructions of Pakistani intelligence. This was not an Indian allegation. This was the former military ruler of Pakistan acknowledging that Pakistan’s spy agency had directed terror operations against a neighbouring country.

Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group whose Muridke complex India also struck, has a similar profile. The Centre for Strategic and International Studies has documented that Lashkar conducts its attacks, including the 2008 Mumbai siege, with the consent and support of the ISI. David Coleman Headley, the Pakistani-American operative who scouted the Mumbai targets, testified that he met with six different ISI officers during his time with Lashkar. American investigators identified one of them, known only as Major Iqbal, as having provided 25,000 dollars in cash and direct operational guidance for the attack that killed 166 people.

What the Strikes Revealed

If Jaish and Lashkar were really rogue outfits operating outside Pakistani state control, the strikes of May 7 should have produced confused and uncertain reactions. Pakistan should have struggled to identify what had been hit, who had died, and why. Instead, the response was immediate and revealing. Pakistan’s military leadership knew exactly what had been targeted, because the targets were on Pakistan’s books in all but name.

In September 2025, a senior Jaish commander named Masood Ilyas Kashmiri appeared at the group’s annual Mission Mustafa conference and openly admitted that Masood Azhar’s family had been killed in the Bahawalpur strikes. Ten members of the family died, including Azhar’s sister, her husband, a nephew, a niece, and five children. Four close aides also died. The location of the strike was Jamia Masjid Subhan Allah, the headquarters of Jaish-e-Mohammed, sitting comfortably inside Pakistani territory, with a UN-designated terrorist living openly within its walls.

The picture this paints is unambiguous. Masood Azhar, listed as a global terrorist by the United Nations Security Council since May 2019, was not in hiding. He was at home, with his family, in a complex protected by the Pakistani state. His brother Abdul Rauf Asghar, also a UN-designated terrorist and the operational head of Jaish, was reportedly killed in the same strike. Pakistan’s posture of plausible deniability has rested for decades on the fiction that men like these are difficult to find. India’s strikes proved that the only people who found them difficult to find were Pakistan’s own authorities.

The Cost of the Charade

The international community has, for too long, accepted Pakistan’s victim narrative at face value. The reasoning has often been geopolitical. Pakistan was a frontline state in the Cold War. Pakistan was a partner in the war on terror. Pakistan held nuclear weapons that demanded careful handling. Each of these arguments contained a fragment of strategic logic. None of them justified the systematic protection of men who killed civilians in Indian cities and villages.

The cost of this charade has been borne by India and by the broader region. Pakistan’s continued sponsorship of terror groups has poisoned the entire South Asian neighbourhood. It has prevented the development of normal trade and travel relations. It has consumed resources that could have built schools and hospitals on both sides of the border. And, most tragically, it has cost thousands of innocent lives across decades of attacks that Pakistan’s intelligence services helped plan, fund, and execute.

Operation Sindoor changed the equation. By striking Bahawalpur and Muridke, India made plain what had always been true. The terrorist infrastructure attacking India operates from inside Pakistan, with the protection of the Pakistani state. The terrorist leadership lives in Pakistani cities, raises families in Pakistani neighbourhoods, and runs operations from Pakistani buildings. The fiction of state distance from these activities has collapsed.

The world now has a choice. It can continue to accept the Pakistani script of victimhood, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Or it can finally treat Pakistan as what it has long been: a state that uses terrorism as an instrument of policy, and that pays a price every time it does. India has decided which path it will follow. The international community must now decide which path it can credibly continue to ignore.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Nearly a year after the April 22, 2025 terror attack in Pahalgam that killed 26 tourists, the families of victims such as Manjunath Rao and Bharath Bhushan continue to struggle with grief, trauma and the lasting psychological consequences of the violence.

The attack, which took place in the Baisaran Valley area of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir, remains one of the deadliest assaults on civilians in the region in recent years. Armed attackers opened fire on tourists, killing 26 people, many of whom were visiting Kashmir with their families.

The incident triggered a strong political and military response from India, including Operation Sindoor, which targeted what New Delhi described as terrorist bases in Pakistan.For the families of those killed, however, the consequences have extended far beyond national security and diplomatic tensions. A year later, many remain trapped in the emotional aftermath of that day.

Among the victims was Manjunath Rao, a realtor from Shivamogga in Karnataka, who had travelled to Kashmir with his wife and son for what was meant to be their first family visit to the Valley. According to family members, the trip was planned as a personal milestone and an opportunity to spend time together away from work and routine responsibilities.

Instead, it ended in violence.

Rao was shot dead during the attack in front of his wife and son, an experience that relatives say has left deep and continuing emotional scars on the family. His relative, Ravi Kiran, told local media that the family has found it difficult to recover from the shock of witnessing the killing directly.

The trauma, according to relatives, is intensified by the fact that the death unfolded in front of his immediate family. His wife and child were not only left to cope with the loss of a husband and father, but also with the memory of the attack itself.Family members say daily life has not returned to normal.

Routine activities continue, but the emotional burden remains. The family has attempted to move forward, yet the event continues to shape conversations, relationships and personal well-being.Mental health experts often note that violent loss witnessed firsthand creates a prolonged form of trauma, particularly for spouses and children.

In such cases, grief is frequently accompanied by recurring memories, anxiety and emotional withdrawal. While the report does not provide clinical details, relatives describe the family’s condition as one of continuing struggle rather than closure.

Another victim, Bharath Bhushan, was an IT professional from Bengaluru who was also among those killed in the same attack. Like Rao, he had travelled as a civilian tourist and was not connected to any political or security institution.Bhushan is survived by his wife and son.

According to the report, his family has chosen to remain largely silent in public, reflecting what relatives describe as the depth of their grief.His father reportedly expressed severe emotional distress and has found it difficult to speak openly about the loss. The silence of the family has itself become part of the story, illustrating how some families respond to tragedy not through public statements, but through withdrawal and private mourning.

The absence of public engagement does not lessen the impact. Rather, it reflects a different form of coping in which grief remains internal, often making recovery slower and more isolating.

For Bhushan’s wife and child, the long-term challenge is both emotional and practical. The sudden death of a family’s primary earning member can reshape household stability, financial planning and emotional security. Though the report focuses primarily on emotional trauma, the broader implications of such losses often extend into every aspect of family life.

The Pahalgam attack also had immediate strategic consequences. India responded by launching Operation Sindoor, a military action targeting locations identified as terrorist infrastructure across the border in Pakistan. The operation was presented as part of a broader national security response following the killings.

The incident intensified already fragile India-Pakistan relations and brought renewed focus to cross-border terrorism and civilian security in Kashmir. It also reshaped political discourse around counterterrorism policy and tourism security in the region.However, for the families directly affected, geopolitical responses offered little immediate relief.

For them, the central reality remains deeply personal: the absence of a husband, father, son or provider whose death cannot be reversed by military retaliation or political declarations.The report from Shivamogga places particular attention on how families continue to live with trauma long after public attention fades.

News coverage often focuses on the day of an attack, the number of casualties and the government response, but survivors and relatives continue to navigate consequences that unfold over months and years.

In Rao’s case, relatives describe a family trying to rebuild daily life while carrying memories of direct violence. In Bhushan’s case, silence and emotional withdrawal indicate grief that remains unresolved.Both cases reflect a broader truth about acts of terrorism: the damage extends beyond those killed. It enters homes, alters childhoods, changes family structures and creates emotional disruptions that may last for decades.

One year later, the names of the victims remain tied not only to the attack itself, but to the ongoing struggle of those left behind.

As public memory moves forward and political attention shifts elsewhere, families like those of Manjunath Rao and Bharath Bhushan continue to live with a reality that remains unchanged since April 22, 2025 a moment of violence that permanently divided life into before and after.

India did not try to completely control the airspace, and it did not keep up the pressure forever.

The crisis between India and Pakistan in May 2025, which has its lineage to the Pahalgam terror attacks that happened in April 2025, has a lot to say about escalation matrix, post-operation results and most importantly of all, how not to make it a protracted conflict. The Indian side has consistently maintained that it has been swift in its actions and achieved its targets on the first day of the strike.

However, as Pakistan climbed the escalation ladder on the second day, the Indian Armed Forces also upped the stakes. As the world at that time was grappling with protracted conflict from Russia-Ukraine to Israel-Gaza, the international community was fearing there were high chances of India-Pakistan getting into the clutches of prolonged conflict.

In the light of newer evidence, such as the one recently released Swiss Air Power related Think Tank report and as the fog of war is settling, two things remain clear: one, India has achieved what it wanted from those precision strikes; also, it did not up the ante unnecessarily and gave Pakistan an off-ramp as asked by Pakistan once achieving its goals.

What makes Operation Sindoor stand out is not that India attacked Pakistan. In 2019, that limit had already been reached. It’s not even the fact that two air forces are fighting in the air. What makes this episode different is that later revelations slowly broke down the initial story frame, making analysts rethink how escalation happened, how it was handled, and why it ended when it did.

After the air battles on May 7, it seemed like Pakistan had the upper hand because they were faster in media briefings. Early reports were shaped by statements from military officials, along with diagrams and confident briefings. In contrast, India didn’t say much. It didn’t say whether or not it had lost any planes, and it only said again that its strikes were aimed at terrorist infrastructure. This difference was important. Without verified information, initial claims spread quickly.

At that point, many people and different nations saw the crisis in a limited way: Pakistan had struck initially, India had taken the harm, and things had calmed down mostly because both sides were being careful. At the time, that reading wasn’t unreasonable. It wasn’t finished either.

As more information came to light, especially from sources that weren’t directly involved in either side’s story, a different picture began to emerge. A Swiss military think tank that studies air warfare wrote a long report on the war that focused less on claims of individual kills and more on how the air campaign changed over the course of four days. It came to a conclusion that was measured but important.

The report said that the Indian Air Force quickly adapted, weakened parts of Pakistan’s air defence network, and gained air superiority over large areas of Pakistani airspace, even though it acknowledged Pakistan’s early tactical successes. It suggested that this change changed the balance of power and was a big reason why Islamabad asked for a ceasefire by May 10.

At first, that conclusion didn’t get as much attention as it should have, maybe because it didn’t fit into the main story that the media was telling. But over time, a number of admissions that are hard to ignore have made it stronger. One of these times was when Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said in public that Indian strikes had hit Nur Khan Air Base. This was not an arbitrary place. Nur Khan is close to Rawalpindi and is closely linked to Pakistan’s air mobility and command infrastructure.

Governments don’t usually want to admit that damage has been done to these kinds of facilities, especially when doing so goes against their earlier claims of strong defence. The admission didn’t say how much damage was done, but it quietly answered a bigger question: Indian strikes had gone far beyond their intended targets.

That recognition also helped make sense of how Pakistan acted diplomatically during the crisis. The US Foreign Agents Registration Act showed that Pakistan asked US officials more than sixty times to step in and stop India’s strikes. These were not one-time actions. They required diplomats and registered lobbyists to stay involved by meeting with each other, calling each other, and writing to each other.

When looked at on its own, this kind of outreach might seem normal. In total, it points to something more urgent: a growing worry that the path of escalation was going too far for Islamabad to handle.

States facing military pressure frequently pursue external stabilisers, especially when nuclear deterrence complicates bilateral signalling. But the size of Pakistan’s outreach does show that they thought that continuing to escalate would be expensive, not just dangerous. In this light, the Swiss assessment’s claim that India had gained coercive leverage through air power starts to look less like a guess.

But the most telling confirmations may have come from actors who usually stay out of official discussions. Hafiz Abdul Rauf, the commander of Lashkar-e-Taiba, said in public that the Indian attack on Muridke was a “very big attack” that destroyed a major training facility.

Masood Ilyas, the commander of Jaish-e-Mohammad, said that their headquarters in Bahawalpur was badly damaged and many people died. These statements didn’t get as much attention over time as military briefings, but they are still important for analysis. Militant groups don’t usually talk about their own losses unless they can’t deny them anymore, even to themselves.

All of these admissions make it harder to believe that Operation Sindoor was mostly a symbol. They imply that the strikes produced significant impacts on infrastructure previously considered to be beneath India’s escalation threshold. More importantly, they made it harder to separate militant activity from the consequences at the state level by blurring the line between non-state actors and the strategic environment that supports them.

It’s interesting how air power was used to make this happen. India did not try to completely control the airspace, and it did not keep up the pressure forever. Instead, it looks like it had a more limited goal: to show that it could get through defended airspace, damage high-value assets, and then stop. This is a different way of escalating things. It sees air superiority as a short-term goal rather than a long-term one. In places where escalation ladders are short and nuclear signalling is always there, this kind of time is important.

From Pakistan’s point of view, the maths got harder and harder. Success in air-to-air combat did not protect infrastructure from being weak. Early narrative advantage didn’t stop later revelations from changing how people thought. By May 10, the costs of continuing the fight, especially with some Indian air superiority, probably outweighed the benefits of keeping it going.

At that point, asking for a ceasefire kept escalation under control and limited the further exposure of important assets. This has detrimental implications for South Asia. Nuclear deterrence still stops full-scale war, but it no longer protects you from heavy conventional pressure.

Denial strategies are still useful in the short term, but they are becoming less effective as more and more open-source intelligence, regulatory transparency, and delayed admissions become available. And the space for managing escalation through proxies seems to be getting smaller as infrastructure that was once off-limits becomes more and more contested.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Until Pakistan matches words with actions, its participation in regional counterterror frameworks will remain a facade.

When Pakistan assumed the chair of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s permanent anti-terror body, the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure (RATS), last month, the optics were striking: a state sponsor of terrorism now overseeing a regional network tasked with combating it.

The irony is hard to ignore. For Islamabad’s international posture and domestic rhetoric to carry credibility, its territory must no longer serve as a safe haven for groups trained and funded to strike Indian soil. Yet, the evidence suggests this condition remains far from met.

Pakistan’s enduring militant ecosystem aligns closely with the country’s long-standing military doctrine of “bleeding India with a thousand cuts”—a strategy that leverages proxies and covert militants to impose costs on India while avoiding direct conventional conflict. Under this logic, groups like Jaishe-e-Mohammad (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) serve not merely ideological but strategic purposes. 

If Pakistan is serious about counterterrorism, the persistence of this doctrine is inexplicable. The question remains: why does Islamabad continue to nurture a system that directly contradicts its international obligations and its stated commitment to counterterrorism?

Persistent Militant Ecosystems and Digital Adaptations

Notwithstanding India’s precision strikes on select Pakistani terrorist camps in May 2025, Pakistan’s militant ecosystems remain largely intact. Take the case of Masood Azhar-led JeM, which continues to plan operations, maintain training facilities, and innovate its fundraising mechanisms. Recent investigative reporting reveals that JeM has shifted toward digital-wallet fundraising and is attempting to rebuild as many as 313 terror hubs across Pakistan.

Despite severe losses during Operation Sindoor—which killed more than a dozen members of Azhar’s family and destroyed JeM’s headquarters in Bahawalpur—he remains defiant in his terrorist drive against India.

In a recent speech at a JeM site in Bahawalpur, Azhar announced plans to establish a women’s jihad course, Jamat-ul-Mominat. The 15-day training program reportedly aims to establish female combat units within JeM. If implemented, this can be a critical operational development for JeM, reminiscent of the Islamic State and Boko Haram, both of which have deployed women as suicide bombers and assault operatives.

Further worrying is the public conduct of the sons and successors of designated terror figures. The son of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) chief Hafiz Saeed, for example, has openly defied extradition calls, using public rallies to proclaim that Pakistan will continue to shield his father while praising military operations and urging “jihad.” 

An anti-regime Pakistani journalist recently reported that Talha Saeed has assumed leadership of an LeT-linked mosque in Lahore—signaling a generational shift in the group’s command and control. These are not isolated cases but part of a broader ecosystem in which religious, militant, and political networks overlap with visible impunity. Their continued prominence underscores the depth of Pakistan’s structural complicity and the normalization of militant influence in public life.

The Digital Evolution of Terror Financing

Pakistan’s counterterrorism narrative further collapses under the scrutiny of its financial oversight. While Islamabad touts its cooperation with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), militant funding has evolved faster than its regulatory mechanisms. Groups such as JeM have reportedly shifted from traditional banking channels to fintech platforms, mobile wallets, and decentralized e-payment systems within Pakistan to sustain operations.

This digital adaptation is not evidence of militant defeat but proof of resilience. Despite a recent implicit warning from FATF President Elisa de Anda Madrazo that Pakistan’s removal from the Grey List in 2022 was not “bullet-proof” and Pakistan’s own finance minister’s admission of rampant unregulated digital transactions, terrorist financing remains largely unchecked. The shift into digital ecosystems allows militant organizations to operate under the radar, with minimal state interference or consequences.

Paradoxical Cover from the United States

Pakistan’s growing diplomatic and economic proximity to the United States may paradoxically weaken Washington’s leverage over Islamabad’s behavior. Historically, U.S. pressure has occasionally forced Pakistan’s military-intelligence establishment to rein in militant proxies. But today, the strategic calculus appears to have shifted. 

As Pakistan portrays itself as a “regional counterterror partner” and a reliable economic hub, Washington remains inclined to prioritize a transactional relationship over accountability. These dynamic risks emboldening Pakistan’s military leadership, led by Field Marshal Asim Munir, to maintain its use of jihadist groups as tools of statecraft. Islamabad’s confidence that its strategic importance shields it from meaningful repercussions only deepens the challenge.

The policy risk for India and its partners is that Pakistan will use its SCO-RATS role to deflect scrutiny while continuing asymmetric operations. If training camps are allowed to be rebuilt, if digital funding networks flourish, and if terrorist rallies continue with active state approval, then Pakistan’s leadership in counterterror structures becomes an exercise in hollow symbolism rather than substantive change.

Pakistan’s claim to regional leadership in counterterrorism rests on fragile ground so long as its own territory hosts—and in many cases, protects—the very networks it purports to combat. The U.S.–Pakistan relationship, increasingly transactional and detached from shared security priorities, risks reinforcing Islamabad’s belief that it can pursue dual policies: cooperation abroad and complicity at home. 

Until Pakistan matches words with actions, its participation in regional counterterror frameworks will remain a facade. The question for the international community is not whether Pakistan can change, but whether it wants to.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

The Sapience School in Vikasnagar, Dehradun, will hold the event on 9 October as part of its Civic and Leadership Development Programme. The initiative aims to give pupils practical exposure to parliamentary debate while also inspiring them with values of discipline, integrity and national service.

The session will feature Colonel Mayank Chaubey (Retired), a leadership mentor and strategic speaker, as chief guest. He is expected to deliver a keynote address titled “Operation Sindoor: The Strength of Our Armed Forces and the Armed Forces as a Career Option for Young Aspirants.”

Col Chaubey, who has recently spoken at other schools in Dehradun, is known for talks that combine historical insight, first-hand military experience and motivational appeal.

At Sapience, he is expected to share lessons from his career while discussing “Operation Sindoor”, presented as a case study in India’s defence preparedness and the spirit of sacrifice associated with the armed forces.

Adding to the line-up will be Lt Col Divya Gaur (Retired), who will speak about opportunities for young Indians—both men and women—in the armed forces. Drawing on her own career, she is expected to outline the challenges of military training and the pride of serving in uniform, encouraging students to consider defence service as a purposeful vocation.

The Mock Parliament itself will see pupils assume roles of legislators in a simulation of India’s democratic process, debating and deliberating on issues of governance and responsibility. School leaders say the exercise is intended to nurture civic awareness and respect for diverse perspectives.

The programme will open with a patriotic pledge and conclude with a collective salute to the nation, underscoring what organisers describe as their mission to shape students who are academically accomplished, socially responsible and emotionally connected to national values.

With its combination of democratic learning and military inspiration, the event is expected to leave a strong impression on young participants, reminding them that leadership begins with service—and that the future strength of India rests in the resolve of its youth.

The veterans’ answers were candid yet encouraging, painting a picture of service that was both demanding and rewarding.

In the Himalayan foothills of northern India, Mount Fort Academy became the stage for a lesson that went far beyond textbooks. Two retired Indian Army officers — Colonel Mayank Chaubey and Lieutenant Colonel Divya Gaur — stood before a hall of students not to recount battles, but to share how courage, discipline, and service can shape lives both inside and outside the military.

Their session, titled “Operation Sindoor: The Strength of Our Armed Forces and the Armed Forces as a Career Option for Young Aspirants,” brought together cultural tradition, career guidance, and a deep sense of purpose.

For students in Dehradun, a city long known for its military academies and defence heritage, it was a moment that connected the realities of national service to the aspirations of a younger generation.

Lessons from the Frontline

The event began with ceremonial rituals: students welcomed the guests with the traditional Tilak and a lamp-lighting ceremony symbolising knowledge and enlightenment. But it was when Colonel Chaubey began speaking that the atmosphere shifted.

Drawing on decades of service, he transported the audience into the heart of Operation Sindoor — a military operation that, he explained, reflected precision, professionalism, and the unyielding resolve of India’s armed forces.

“Uniform is not merely a piece of attire,” he told the young audience. “It is a lifelong reminder that the nation always comes first.”

His words were not just about patriotism. They framed the military as a space where resilience, unity, and sacrifice become part of daily life — values that, he suggested, every student could adopt whether or not they pursued a defence career.

In recounting episodes of military life, from tense deployments to moments of camaraderie among soldiers, he offered insights that went beyond geopolitics and strategy. The stories spoke of character, perseverance, and moral strength — timeless lessons relevant to classrooms as much as battlefields.

Broadening Horizons

Adding another dimension to the afternoon, Lt Col Divya Gaur shared her journey as a woman officer in the Indian Army. In a profession often associated with men, she highlighted how opportunities in today’s armed forces are expanding, encouraging young women to step forward into roles of leadership and responsibility.

She explained the various pathways into the military — from the National Defence Academy to specialised technical branches — underscoring that talent and determination matter more than gender.

Her speech resonated with many in the audience, particularly young girls who saw in her a role model balancing compassion with command.

The session then opened to questions. Students, curious and eager, asked about modern warfare technology, the rigours of training, and the realities of life in uniform.

The veterans’ answers were candid yet encouraging, painting a picture of service that was both demanding and rewarding. For the students, the armed forces appeared not just as a career option but as a way of life built on honour and purpose.

Shaping the Next Generation

As the session concluded, the school’s leadership offered thanks and felicitations to the guests. But for many in the audience, the real takeaway was intangible: a renewed sense of what leadership and service mean in an uncertain world.

Colonel Chaubey has made it a personal mission to visit schools and universities across India, seeking to build a bridge between the nation’s youth and its armed forces. His aim, he says, is not only to inform students about career opportunities but to instil values of discipline, unity, and courage that can guide them in any walk of life.

For the students of Mount Fort Academy, the session was less about military tactics and more about human resilience.

In a world where global challenges increasingly call for cooperation, empathy, and strength of character, the wisdom of two veterans offered a reminder: lessons from the battlefield can illuminate the path to a better future.

The program aims to motivate students to consider careers in the Armed Forces, highlighting both the discipline and service values central to military life and the broader role of the Forces in shaping India’s national identity.

A First Step at The Asian School

The initiative began at The Asian School, Dehradun, where students gathered for a lecture themed “Operation Sindoor: The Strength of Our Armed Forces and the Armed Forces as a Career Option for Young Aspirants.”

The session opened with a pledge of commitment by students, followed by a short film on Operation Sindoor, which illustrated the courage and resilience of Indian soldiers.

Colonel Chaubey emphasized that Operation Sindoor was more than a military achievement—it represented “New India’s determination and resilience.” He urged students to adopt the principle of “Nation First, Always First” and to view military service as a career path rooted in courage, discipline, and sacrifice.

The event concluded with enthusiastic chants of national pride.

The mission continues at Mount Fort Academy, Dehradun, on 4 October 2025. This session will not only highlight the strategic lessons of Operation Sindoor but will also feature Lt. Col. Divya Gaur, who will share her personal journey in the Armed Forces, providing students with real-world perspectives on life in uniform.

A Nationwide Vision

Colonel Chaubey’s initiative is designed as a long-term national movement, beginning in Uttarakhand but intended to inspire students across India. By showcasing the Armed Forces as both a career option and a symbol of service to the nation, he hopes to foster a deeper culture of patriotism and civic responsibility among India’s youth.

“Uttarakhand is just the beginning,” Colonel Chaubey said. “The strength of tomorrow lies in instilling discipline, courage, and nation-first values in the youth of today.”

Through the lens of Operation Sindoor, the initiative reminds students that patriotism is not only about defending borders but also about making choices that place collective good above self-interest.

The call, placed at President Trump’s request, comes amid heightened tensions between India and Pakistan following a major terror attack in Jammu & Kashmir’s Pahalgam region on April 22. Expressing condolences, Trump reiterated America’s support for India’s fight against terrorism — a sentiment welcomed by New Delhi as India continues its military operation, codenamed Operation Sindoor.

During the conversation, Prime Minister Modi provided a detailed account of India’s calibrated strikes on Pakistani terror camps and military positions conducted on the nights of May 6–7 and May 9–10. These operations, Modi emphasized, were “measured, precise, and non-escalatory”, yet effective enough to force Pakistan to request a cessation of hostilities.

Crucially, Modi made it clear that India regards this conflict not as a proxy war, but as a full-fledged confrontation against a terrorism-exporting state. “India does not and will never accept mediation,” he told President Trump, firmly dismissing any suggestion of third-party involvement or backdoor diplomacy — a position reflecting strong national consensus within India.

Trump reportedly inquired whether Modi could visit the U.S. on his way back from Canada, but scheduling constraints made such a stop unfeasible. However, both leaders agreed to reschedule a bilateral meeting soon.

The call also touched upon pressing global flashpoints, notably the Iran-Israel standoff. Modi and Trump shared serious concerns over Tehran’s destabilizing activities in the region. The leaders also reviewed developments in the Russia-Ukraine war, advocating for diplomacy but with clarity on red lines.

Turning toward the Indo-Pacific, Modi reiterated India’s strong commitment to the QUAD alliance, inviting Trump to visit India for the next QUAD Summit. Trump welcomed the invitation, reaffirming the importance of U.S.-India partnership in maintaining regional balance and confronting shared security challenges.

This conversation marked the first formal engagement between the two leaders following the terror attacks, and it signals a growing alignment between New Delhi and Washington on counter-terrorism, strategic deterrence, and geopolitical stability.

Pakistan’s hurried outreach to Washington for a ceasefire underscores how severely it was rattled by India’s swift and precise military campaign.

Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) on Thursday has declared India as a rising military and political superpower. Authored by Senior Research Fellow Anna Mahjar-Barducci, the report titled “India Has Emerged As A Military And Political Superpower” highlights India’s growing clout in global geopolitics, citing its successful Operation Sindoor as a pivotal moment in asserting its military might and strategic autonomy.

Operation Sindoor: A Turning Point

The report emphasizes that India’s military success during Operation Sindoor, which began on May 7 and paused temporarily on May 10, marked a seismic shift in South Asia’s strategic balance. The operation was launched in response to the Pakistan-sponsored Pahalgam terror attack, which killed dozens of civilians.

“India managed to bring Pakistan to its knees,” the report claims. “In just a few days, India struck 11 Pakistani airbases and destroyed 25 percent of Pakistan’s air force. This is a remarkable feat, especially considering Pakistan’s nuclear capability.”

According to MEMRI, Pakistan’s hurried outreach to Washington for a ceasefire underscores how severely it was rattled by India’s swift and precise military campaign. Despite diplomatic pressure, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi maintained a firm stance.

“We have just suspended our retaliatory action against Pakistan’s terror and military camps,” PM Modi said in a televised address on May 12. “In the coming days we will measure every step of Pakistan on the criterion that what sort of attitude Pakistan will adopt ahead.”

Political Ascendancy: India’s Battle on Multiple Fronts

Beyond the battlefield, India’s political leadership has taken center stage. MEMRI’s report credits New Delhi with successfully leading a multipronged offensive—not just against state-sponsored terrorism but also against geopolitical actors that enable and support it.

India’s stand against Turkey has been particularly noted. Ankara, under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is alleged to have provided Pakistan with Asisguard Songar drones during the conflict. This military assistance has fueled a strong backlash in India.

The “Boycott Turkey” movement, once limited to online activism, has now taken on a life of its own. “From marble yards in Udaipur to fruit markets in Pune, Indian traders and consumers are turning away from Turkish goods,” reported Indian media. The movement reflects India’s new approach: aligning economic decisions with national security interests.

India also faced off with Iran, which drew criticism for sending its deputy foreign minister to Islamabad days before the strikes. Indian media condemned the move, viewing it as a tacit endorsement of Pakistan at a volatile time.

Modi’s Doctrine: No Compromise on Terror

MEMRI’s analysis highlights Prime Minister Modi’s doctrinal shift in India’s foreign policy. By linking trade and diplomacy to a country’s stance on terrorism, Modi has signaled that India will not return to the status quo.

“We will not differentiate between the government sponsoring terrorism and the masterminds of terrorism,” Modi asserted. “Terror and trade cannot go together.” This statement was widely interpreted as a firm response to then-U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion that India and Pakistan work out trade deals in exchange for a ceasefire.

According to Mahjar-Barducci, Modi’s unapologetic approach marks a turning point. India has broken free from years of strategic restraint and has adopted a more assertive, self-assured international posture.

A Beacon for the Democratic World

The MEMRI report concludes with a sweeping endorsement of India’s position in the global order. As the world’s largest democracy, India is now seen as a vital counterbalance to authoritarian powers like China and a key player in maintaining regional and global stability.

“All those that believe in liberty and freedom are looking in awe at India,” the report says. “India is the major obstacle to China’s expansionist ambitions in Asia. It is the only country that has openly defied Beijing’s hegemony.”

Mahjar-Barducci argues that India’s rise is not just military or economic, but deeply ideological. It is emerging as the voice of democratic resistance in a time of global uncertainty.

“India is now a beacon of hope, projecting its power and determination. It is becoming the leader of the democratic world that is ready to fight for its values,” she writes.

The MEMRI report positions India not merely as a regional power, but as a central pillar of a reshaping world order. Operation Sindoor may have been a military operation, but its ripple effects have traveled far beyond the battlefield—into diplomacy, economics, and the very discourse of global power.

As the report ends on a nationalistic note—“Bharat Mata ki Jai” (Victory to Mother India)—it is clear that India’s moment on the world stage has arrived. What remains to be seen is how the world, particularly the West and China, will recalibrate their strategies in response to this rising giant.