VIEWPOINT | Lest we forget ensuring zero tolerance to terrorism demands vigilance
Guest column by Prakash Gupta, Consul General of India in Seattle
A year ago, on April 22, 2025, a tourist visiting the town of Pahalgam in India’s Kashmir Valley posted a 53-second video of himself ziplining above a stunning mountain landscape. It seems harmless, until you notice what’s happening below. Midway through the clip, what had been a peaceful scene of hundreds of vacationers suddenly turns chaotic, people running for their lives. The zipliner seemed completely oblivious to what was happening right below his nose.
Twenty-six innocent lives were taken away in a terrorist attack, the deadliest on Indian soil since the 2008 Mumbai attacks. We cannot afford to be equally oblivious. Terrorism anywhere is a threat everywhere, even thousands of miles away.
If we go back 25 years and 7,000 miles westward, on Sept. 11, 2001, a peaceful Tuesday morning turned into the deadliest attack on American soil. In the aftermath, Americans understood that terrorism does not respect borders, it demands action and not just grief. The United States built global consensus that safe havens for terrorists are unacceptable and the states that harbor those terrorists and sponsor terrorism cannot hide behind sovereignty.
The Pahalgam terrorist attack was carried out by a group across India’s border, The Resistance Front, a proxy of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). LeT is a United Nations-designated terrorist group which was behind the deadly 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack where many American lives were also lost. LeT was founded by Hafiz Saeed with funding from Osama Bin Laden. This was not an unknown threat. The organizations, the operatives, the infrastructure — all extensively documented by the United Nations and intelligence agencies worldwide.
From the 1993 Mumbai bombings to the 2001 attack on India’s Parliament to the 2008 Mumbai attacks, India has endured cross-border terrorism for over three decades. After Pahalgam, India faced the same question the United States faced after 2001: How would a responsible democracy answerable to its citizens act in such a scenario?
On May 7, 2025, India responded to the terrorist attack with a cross-border operation, named “Sindoor” (after the sacred vermillion on a married woman’s forehead that marks her bond with her husband in Hindu tradition). The symbolism was deliberate as the terrorists targeted Hindu men, asking their religion before shooting them in front of their wives and children. Among the victims were newlyweds on their first trip together after marriage.
Operation Sindoor was targeted at terrorist infrastructure and encampments, including the headquarters of the Lashkar-e Taiba. The attacks were measured and proportionate, only hitting the terrorists and completely avoiding the civilian infrastructure.
Subsequently, Pakistan launched targeted attacks against Indian civilian and military infrastructure. This left India no choice but to launch retaliatory strikes against major bases of the Pakistan Air Force, eventually leading to a call from Pakistan’s Director General of Military Operations to his Indian counterpart asking for cessation of firing and military activities.
In July 2025, two months after the phone call and the ceasefire agreement, the United States designated the perpetrators of the Pahalgam attack, TRF (The Resistance Front), as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) and as a Specially Designated Terrorist Organisation (SDTO). Recently, an exhibition on “Human Cost of Terrorism” with details of the Pahalgam terror attack was organized at the US Congress (Capitol Hill) where it received bipartisan support from members of US Congress. Also in the same month, United Nations Security Council’s sanctions monitoring report documented the Pahalgam attack and identified TRF, which was adopted by consensus, with Pakistan itself a sitting member of the Council at the time.
Several members of the U.S. Congress condemned the attacks, including South Dakota’s junior senator and former governor Mike Rounds.
“Terrorism remains a threat around the globe and can never be justified,” he tweeted, echoing all American voices who stood in solidarity with the families of the victims and the larger Indian-diaspora in America, many of whom have familial ties in the Kashmir region. Thousands of Indian-Americans in Seattle among other cities came together and observed vigil after the attacks.
Operation Sindoor was not just a military response. It established a principle that the world’s largest democracy will act decisively to protect its citizens, on its own terms, while remaining committed to peace. India does not seek confrontation. But when terrorists strike, India will respond. This is the same principle that the United States affirmed after September 11th, and it is the same principle that every democracy that has lost citizens to terrorism understands. The fight against terrorism is not one nation’s burden. It is a shared responsibility, one that demands not just resolutions but resolve and action.
A year later, one cannot help but think of the tourist who was ziplining in Pahalgam, recording what he thought was just another beautiful day but unaware of the chaos below him. Today, everyone knows what happened. We know who was responsible. We know that the infrastructure of terror continues to threaten innocent hardworking lives across the world. To remain oblivious now, is not innocence but a choice that none of the countries of the world can afford to make. The world needs consensus on zero tolerance to terrorism.
Prakash Gupta is the Consul General of India in the ally nation’s Seattle office, responsible for guiding U.S.-India relations in South Dakota as well as Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming.
This content is part of partnership between The Dakota Scout and the Consulate General of India in Seattle intended to explore ideas, traditions and policy ties shaping the relationship between India, South Dakota and the United States.
