In the ever-shifting geopolitical landscape of South Asia, few nations have authored a history of duplicity as consistent as Pakistan. Since its inception in 1947, Pakistan has walked a tightrope of half-truths, military adventurism, and the dangerous patronage of radical extremism. From the covert invasions in Kashmir to the orchestration of some of the most brutal terrorist attacks on Indian soil, Pakistan’s record reads like a case study in state-sponsored subterfuge.

This is not a story of a nation that lost its way — it is a story of a nation that chose a path of denial, deception, and jihad as a matter of long-term policy.

1947–48: A Nation Born, A War Waged

Barely months into independence, Pakistan made its first foray into deceit. In October 1947, it dispatched tribal militias from the North-West Frontier Province into the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir. Marketed as a “popular uprising,” the operation was backed, armed, and orchestrated by the Pakistani Army. The objective: annex Kashmir by force.

The plan backfired. Maharaja Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession with India, and Indian troops were airlifted to defend the state. Thus began the First Indo-Pak War, and Pakistan’s long and bloody obsession with Kashmir was set in motion.

1965: Operation Gibraltar and the Delusion of ‘Liberation’

Two decades later, Pakistan launched Operation Gibraltar, sending infiltrators into Kashmir with the delusional hope that locals would rise in rebellion. What followed was the Second Indo-Pak War. Once again, Pakistan denied state involvement, claiming the combatants were “freedom fighters.”

But India’s military retaliation was swift and decisive, exposing the myth of a local uprising. Still, Pakistan’s media, under military influence, declared victory. A pattern was taking shape: aggressive provocation followed by full-throated denial.

1971: The Betrayal of East Pakistan

Nowhere is Pakistan’s internal deception more apparent than in the events leading to the creation of Bangladesh. When East Pakistanis (mostly Bengali Muslims) voted overwhelmingly for autonomy in the 1970 elections, Pakistan’s ruling elite, dominated by the West, responded with Operation Searchlight, a genocidal crackdown.

An estimated 3 million were killed, hundreds of thousands of women raped, and over 10 million refugees fled to India. Pakistan still refuses to acknowledge the scale of its crimes. Its textbooks omit the genocide, and its officials speak only of a “civil conflict.”

The 1980s: Exporting Extremism — From Punjab to Afghanistan

In the 1980s, under the leadership of General Zia-ul-Haq, Pakistan institutionalized jihad. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) began channeling resources to Islamist fighters in Afghanistan to counter Soviet influence, a policy endorsed and funded by the United States.

Simultaneously, Pakistan began sponsoring Khalistani separatists in Indian Punjab. Arms, training camps, and propaganda were supplied to radical Sikh elements. The 1985 Air India Kanishka bombing, which killed 329 people, was the deadliest expression of this cross-border extremism.

1999: The Kargil Betrayal

While then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee extended a hand of peace with the Lahore Declaration, Pakistan’s military, under General Pervez Musharraf, was already plotting infiltration into Kargil.

Regular Pakistani troops, masquerading as militants, captured Indian Army posts in high-altitude terrain. The deception was so deep that even Pakistan’s civilian leadership was kept in the dark. It took a full-scale war and diplomatic isolation for Pakistan to admit defeat, and only tacitly.

21st Century: A Legacy of Terror

The 2000s saw Pakistan evolve from a manipulator of insurgencies to a global exporter of terrorism.

2001: Attack on the Indian Parliament

On 13 December 2001, five terrorists stormed the Indian Parliament. Nine people were killed, and a major constitutional crisis erupted. The attack was traced to Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, both headquartered in Pakistan. The country responded with indifference, calling it an “internal matter.” India mobilized its forces, bringing both nations to the brink of war.

2008: Mumbai Attacks

On 26 November 2008, the world watched in horror as ten LeT operatives carried out a 60-hour siege in Mumbai. 166 people were killed, including foreigners. The only captured attacker, AjmalKasab, was a Pakistani national trained in LeT camps in PoK. Intercepts, GPS coordinates, and satellite imagery traced every stage of the attack to Pakistani handlers.

Pakistan responded with a familiar playbook: denial, stalling trials, and blaming “non-state actors.”

(Kasab was born in the village of Faridkot, located in Depalpur Tehsil, Okara District, in Punjab province, Pakistan.)

2016: Pathankot Air Base Attack

In January 2016, JeM terrorists attacked the strategic Pathankot Air Force station. India provided call records, GPS logs, and voice samples — but Pakistan’s investigative team, likely acting under ISI instructions, returned home and dismissed all evidence.

India formally invited Pakistan to participate in the investigation. Both nations signed a mutual agreement—India would host a Pakistani Joint Investigation Team (JIT), and Pakistan was also expected to reciprocate .

From 28–31 March 2016, a five-member JIT—including an ISI official—visited Delhi and Pathankot to collect evidence. The team reviewed autopsy reports, DNA evidence, weapon markings, call records, GPS data, and interviewed 13 witnesses (including Punjab SP Salwinder Singh).

Pakistan’s JIT acknowledged that the attackers were Pakistani nationals and that JeM was behind the attack. Indian authorities provided full transcripts of intercepted communications linking JeM handlers, including Masood Azhar’s brother, Abdul Rauf, to the attack.

(Masood Azhar is the founder and chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), a Pakistan-based Islamist terrorist organization responsible for numerous deadly attacks in India, including the 2001 Parliament attack, the 2016 Pathankot airbase attack, and the 2019 Pulwama suicide bombing.

Pakistan later backtracked on allowing Indian investigators access to Pakistan, coinciding with mounting Indian evidence linking the ISI to the case

2019: Pulwama and Balakot

On 14 February 2019, a suicide bomber killed 40 CRPF personnel in Pulwama. JeM claimed responsibility, and the attacker’s video — filmed in Pakistan — went viral. India retaliated with an airstrike on a JeM camp in Balakot.

Pakistan initially denied the camp’s existence, then claimed the strike had missed. Later satellite evidence debunked those claims. Masood Azhar, JeM’s founder, remains protected by Pakistan’s security establishment despite being a UN-designated terrorist.

2025: The Pahalgam Terror Attack — A Turning Point

On 22 April 2025, five militants, three identified as Pakistani nationals, attacked a tourist group in the scenic Baisaran Valley near Pahalgam, Jammu & Kashmir. The gunmen, clad in combat fatigues and armed with automatic rifles, opened fire during a zipline excursion, killing 26 civilians, including pilgrims and a foreign national, and injuring several others.

The self-proclaimed “Resistance Front” (TRF), believed to be a Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) front, initially claimed responsibility, but later withdrew its statement. Indian authorities, supported by survivor testimony and intercepted communications, hold that JeM-linked handlers based in Pakistan orchestrated the attack.

Predictably, Pakistan dismissed any role, calling the allegations "baseless" and urging restraint, a familiar refrain in the face of mounting evidence.

Operation Sindoor: India’s Strategic Response

Responding decisively, India launched Operation Sindoor on 7 May 2025. The Indian Air Force carried out missile strikes on nine terror-camp locations across Pakistan and Pakistan‑occupied Kashmir, specifically targeting sites used by Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, emphasizing that no military or civilian installations were hit.

(All of these are designated terrorist groups banned by the UN)

Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh later stated that “at least 100 militants had been neutralized” as a result of these strikes. Following the operation, both nations agreed to a ceasefire on 10 May, mediated through direct military lines of communication. Satellite imagery later contradicted Pakistan’s disinformation efforts, claiming damage to Indian bases

A Nation Caught in its Own Web

From its tribal invasion of Kashmir in 1947 to harboring Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan’s conduct has remained consistent. It wears the mask of a democracy, but its military-intelligence complex pulls the strings. It claims victimhood but behaves like an aggressor. It speaks of peace but breeds war.

The tragedy is not just that Pakistan deceives the world — it deceives its own people, rewriting history, glorifying violence, and denying accountability.

As India evolves, modernizes, and globalizes, Pakistan remains tethered to a Cold War-era doctrine of “strategic depth” through terrorism. But that doctrine is failing. With every attack and every denial, Pakistan isolates itself further from the community of responsible nations.

And as Operation Sindoor showed, India no longer plays by Pakistan’s script.