IndiaPakistan

Pakistan has welcomed Sikh pilgrims from India in the first major crossing since their deadly conflict in May closed the land border between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

More than 2,100 pilgrims were granted visas to attend a 10-day festival marking 556 years since the birth of Guru Nanak, founder of the Sikh faith, a decision that was in line with efforts to promote “interreligious and intercultural harmony and understanding”, Pakistan’s high commission in New Delhi said last week.

In May, Islamabad and New Delhi engaged in their worst fighting since 1999, leaving more than 70 people dead. The Wagah-Attari border, the only active land crossing between the two countries, was closed to general traffic after the violence.

On Wednesday, the pilgrims will gather at Nankana Sahib, Guru Nanak’s birthplace west of Lahore, before visiting other sacred sites in Pakistan, including Kartarpur, where the guru is buried.

The Kartarpur Corridor, a visa-free route opened in 2019 to allow Indian Sikhs to visit the temple without crossing the main border, has remained closed since the conflict.

Four days of conflict erupted in May after New Delhi accused Islamabad of backing a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, allegations Pakistan denied.

Sikhism is a monotheistic religion founded in the 15th century in Punjab, a region spanning parts of present-day India and Pakistan. While most Sikhs migrated to India during partition, some of their most revered places of worship are in Pakistan.

A forum of regional countries, including India, voiced opposition to any foreign military infrastructure in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan’s regional neighbours, including India, have voiced a rare unified front by opposing foreign attempts to deploy “military infrastructure” in the country, as United States President Donald Trump presses to regain control of the Bagram airbase.

In a joint statement on Tuesday, members of the Moscow Format of Consultations on Afghanistan – which include US allies India and Pakistan – “reaffirmed their unwavering support for the establishment of Afghanistan as an independent, united and peaceful state”. The forum also includes Russia, China, Iran and Central Asian nations, all of whom strongly oppose any US return presence in Afghanistan.

The members “called unacceptable the attempts by countries to deploy their military infrastructure in Afghanistan and neighbouring states, since this does not serve the interests of regional peace and stability”.

Though the statement echoes last year’s forum language, it suggests broad regional opposition to Trump’s push to return to Bagram, which he handed over to Afghanistan’s Taliban five years ago as part of a deal paving the way for the US withdrawal from Kabul.

In backing the statement, India – a longtime US ally – navigates fraying ties with Washington and apparent rapprochement with the Taliban, which it long opposed but has in recent years cultivated ties with.

In the latest diplomatic outreach, India is set to welcome the Taliban’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi for a historic first visit to New Delhi this week, lasting from October 9-16.

After attending the Moscow forum, Muttaqi emphasised that Afghanistan will not accept any foreign military presence. “Afghanistan is a free and independent country, and throughout history, it has never accepted the military presence of foreigners,” he said. “Our decision and policy will remain the same to keep Afghanistan free and independent.”

Last month, Trump threatened “bad things” would happen to Afghanistan if it did not give back Bagram, and cited what he called its strategic location near China. The Taliban has rejected Trump’s calls to return the base.

Bagram is about 800km (about 500 miles) from the Chinese border, and about 2,400km (about 1,500 miles) from the nearest Chinese missile factory in Xinjiang.

Trump has referred to China as a key reason for wanting to retake control of Bagram, saying last month in London that the base is “an hour away from where [China] makes its nuclear weapons”.

Current and former US officials have cast doubt on Trump’s goal, saying that reoccupying Bagram might end up looking like a reinvasion, requiring more than 10,000 troops as well as the deployment of advanced air defences.

“The sheer logistics of negotiating redeployment and handing back would be extremely challenging and lengthy, and it’s not clear that this would serve either side’s strategic interests,” said Ashley Jackson, co-director at the Geneva-headquartered Centre on Armed Groups.

Bagram, a sprawling complex, was the main base for US forces in Afghanistan during the two decades of war that followed the September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington by al-Qaeda.

Thousands of people were imprisoned at the site for years without charge or trial by US forces during its so-called “war on terror”, and many of them were abused or tortured.

The Taliban retook the facility in 2021 following the US withdrawal, which Trump first set in motion in his first term as president, and the collapse of the Afghan government with Joe Biden in the White House.

India’s cricket team hoisted an imaginary trophy after winning the 2025 Asia Cup against Pakistan, refusing to accept the real one from Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi. The match came four months after a brief aerial war between the two nuclear-armed rivals over a deadly attack on a tourist area in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Islamabad, Pakistan – For the second time in three years, catastrophic monsoon floods have carved a path of destruction across Pakistan’s north and central regions, particularly in its Punjab province, submerging villages, drowning farmland, displacing millions and killing hundreds.

This year, India – Pakistan’s archrival and a nuclear-armed neighbour – is also reeling. Its northern states, including Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Indian Punjab, have seen widespread flooding as heavy monsoon rains swell rivers on both sides of the border.

Pakistani authorities say that since late June, when the monsoon season began, at least 884 people have died nationally, more than 220 of them in Punjab. On the Indian side, the casualty count has crossed 100, with more than 30 dead in Indian Punjab.

Yet, shared suffering hasn’t brought the neighbours closer: In Pakistan’s Punjab, which borders India, federal minister Ahsan Iqbal has, in fact, accused New Delhi of deliberately releasing excess water from dams without timely warnings.

“India has started using water as a weapon and has caused wide-scale flooding in Punjab,” Iqbal said last month, citing releases into the Ravi, Sutlej and Chenab rivers, all of which originate in Indian territory and flow into Pakistan.

Iqbal further said that releasing flood water was the “worst example of water aggression” by India, which he said threatened lives, property and livelihoods.

“Some issues should be beyond politics, and water cooperation must be one of them,” the minister said on August 27, while he participated in rescue efforts in Narowal city, his constituency that borders India.

Those accusations come amid heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, and the breakdown of a six-decade-old pact that helped them share waters for rivers that are lifelines to both nations.

But experts argue that the evidence is thin to suggest that India might have deliberately sought to flood Pakistan – and the larger nation’s own woes point to the risks of such a strategy, even if New Delhi were to contemplate it.

Weaponising water

Relations between India and Pakistan, already at a historic low, plummeted further in April after the Pahalgam attack, in which gunmen killed 26 civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir. India blamed Pakistan for the attack and walked out of the Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), the transboundary agreement that governs the Indus Basin’s six rivers.

Pakistan rejected the accusation that it was in any way behind the Pahalgam attack. But in early May, the neighbours waged a four-day conflict, targeting each other’s military bases with missiles and drones in the gravest military escalation between them in almost three decades.

Under the IWT, the two countries were required to exchange detailed water-flow data regularly. With India no longer adhering to the pact, fears have mounted in recent months that New Delhi could either try to stop the flow of water into Pakistan, or flood its western neighbour through sudden, large releases.

After New Delhi suspended its participation in the IWT, India’s Home Minister Amit Shah in June said the treaty would never be restored, a stance that prompted protests in Pakistan and accusations of “water terrorism”.

But while the Indian government has not issued a formal response to accusations that it has chosen to flood Pakistan, the Indian High Commission in Islamabad has, in the last two weeks, shared several warnings of possible cross-border flooding on “humanitarian grounds”.

And water experts say that attributing Pakistan’s floods primarily to Indian water releases from dams is an “oversimplification” of the causes of the crisis that risks obscuring the urgent, shared challenges posed by climate change and ageing infrastructure.

“The Indian decision to release water from their dam has not caused flooding in Pakistan,” said Daanish Mustafa, a professor of critical geography at King’s College London.

“India has major dams on its rivers, which eventually make their way to Pakistan. Any excess water that will be released from these rivers will significantly impact India’s own states first,” he told Al Jazeera.

Shared monsoon strain

Both Pakistan and India depend on glaciers in the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges to feed their rivers. For Pakistan, the Indus river basin is a lifeline. It supplies water to most of the country’s roughly 250 million people and underpins its agriculture.

Under the IWT, India controls the three eastern rivers – Ravi, Sutlej and Beas – while Pakistan controls the three western rivers, Jhelum, Chenab and Indus.

India is obligated to allow waters of the western rivers to flow into Pakistan with limited exceptions, and to provide timely, detailed hydrological data.

India has built dams on the eastern rivers it controls, and the flow of the Ravi and Sutlej into Pakistan has considerably reduced since then. It has also built dams on some of the western rivers – it is allowed to, under the treaty, as long as that does not affect the volume of water flowing into Pakistan.

But melting glaciers and an unusually intense summer monsoon pushed river levels on both sides of the border dangerously high this year.

In Pakistan, glacial outbursts followed by heavy rains raised levels in the western rivers, while surging flows put infrastructure on the eastern rivers in India at serious risk.

Mustafa of King’s College said that dams – like other infrastructure – are designed keeping in mind a safe capacity of water that they can hold, and are typically meant to operate for about 100 years. But climate change has dramatically altered the average rainfall that might have been taken into account while designing these projects.

“The parameters used to build the dams are now obsolete and meaningless,” he said. “When the capacity of the dams is exceeded, water must be released or it will put the entire structure at risk of destruction.”

Among the major dams upstream in Indian territory are Salal and Baglihar on the Chenab; Pong on the Beas; Bhakra on the Sutlej; and Ranjit Sagar (also known as Thein) on the Ravi.

These dams are based in Indian-administered Jammu and Kashmir, Indian Punjab and Himachal Pradesh, with vast areas of Indian territory between them and the border.

Blaming India for the flooding in Pakistan makes no sense, said Shiraz Memon, a former Pakistani representative on the bilateral commission tasked under the IWT to monitor the implementation of the pact.

“Instead of acknowledging that India has shared warnings, we are blaming them of water terrorism. It is [a] simple, natural flood phenomenon,” Memon said, adding that by the end of August, reservoirs across the region were full.

“With water at capacity, spillways had to be opened for downstream releases. This is a natural solution as there is no other option available,” he told Al Jazeera.

Politics of blame

According to September 3 data on India’s Central Water Commission website, at least a dozen sites face a “severe” flood situation, and another 19 are above normal flood levels.

The same day, Pakistan’s Ministry of Water Resources issued a notification, quoting a message from the Indian High Commission, warning of “high flood” on the Sutlej and Tawi rivers.

It was the fourth such notice by India after three earlier warnings last week, but none contained detailed hydrological data.

Pakistan’s Meteorological Department, in a report on September 4, said on the Pakistani side, two sites on the Sutlej and Ravi faced “extremely high” flood levels, while two other sites on the Ravi and Chenab saw “very high” levels.

The sheer volume of water during an intense monsoon often exceeds any single dam or barrage’s capacity. Controlled releases have become a necessary, if dangerous, part of flood management on both sides of the border, said experts.

They added that while the IWT obliged India to alert Pakistan to abnormal flows, Pakistan also needs better monitoring and real-time data systems rather than relying solely on diplomatic exchanges.

The blame game, analysts warn, can serve short-term political purposes on both sides, especially after May’s conflict.

For India, suspending the treaty is framed as a firm stance against what it sees as Pakistan’s state-sponsored terrorism. For Pakistan, blaming India can provide a political scapegoat that distracts from domestic failures in flood mitigation and governance.

“Rivers are living, breathing entities. This is what they do; they are always on the move. You cannot control the flood, especially a high or severe flood,” academic Mustafa said.

Blaming India won’t stop the floods. But, he added, it appears to be an “easy way out to relinquish responsibility”.

Islamabad, Pakistan – India on August 20 announced that it had successfully test-fired Agni-V, its intermediate-range ballistic missile, from a test range in Odisha on its eastern Bay of Bengal coast.

The Agni-V, meaning “fire” in Sanskrit, is 17.5 metres long, weighs 50,000kg, and can carry more than 1,000kg of nuclear or conventional payload. Capable of travelling more than 5,000km at hypersonic speeds of nearly 30,000km per hour, it is among the fastest ballistic missiles in the world.

The Agni test came exactly a week after Pakistan announced the formation of a new Army Rocket Force Command (ARFC), aimed, say experts, at plugging holes in its defensive posture exposed by India during the four-day conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours in May.

But experts say the latest Indian test might be a message less for Pakistan and more for another neighbour that New Delhi is cautiously warming up to again: China.

The Agni’s range puts most of Asia, including China’s northern regions, and parts of Europe within reach. This was the missile’s 10th test since 2012 and its first since March last year, but its timing, say analysts, was significant.

It came just ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s trip to China for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, amid a thaw in ties – after years of tension over their disputed border – that has been accelerated by United States President Donald Trump’s tariff war against India. On Wednesday, the US tariffs on Indian goods doubled to 50 percent amid tensions over New Delhi’s oil purchases from Russia.

Yet despite that shift in ties with Beijing, India continues to view China as its primary threat in the neighbourhood, say experts, underscoring the complex relationship between the world’s two most populous nations. And it’s at China that India’s development of medium and long-range missiles is primarily aimed, they say.

India’s missile advantage over Pakistan

While India acknowledged losing an unspecified number of fighter jets during the May skirmish with Pakistan, it also inflicted significant damage on Pakistani military bases, particularly with its supersonic BrahMos cruise missiles.

The BrahMos, capable of carrying nuclear or conventional payloads of up to 300kg, has a range of about 500km. Its low altitude, terrain-hugging trajectory and blistering speed make it difficult to intercept, allowing it to penetrate Pakistani territory with relative ease.

Many experts argue that this context shows the Agni-V test is not directly linked to Pakistan’s announcement of the ARFC. Instead, they say, the test was likely a signal to China. Indian and Chinese troops were in an eyeball-to-eyeball standoff along their disputed Himalayan border for four years after a deadly clash in 2020, before Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Russia in October 2024 to begin a process of detente.

Modi’s visit to China for the SCO summit on Sunday will be his first to that country since 2018. In the past, India has often felt betrayed by overtures to China, which, it claims, have frequently been followed by aggression from Beijing along their border.

“India’s requirement for a long-range, but not intercontinental, missile is dictated by its threat perception of China,” Manpreet Sethi, a distinguished fellow at the New Delhi-based Centre for Air Power Studies, told Al Jazeera.

“Agni-V is a nuclear-capable ballistic missile of 5,000km range, which India has been developing as part of its nuclear deterrence capability against China. It has no relevance to Pakistan,” Sethi added.

Christopher Clary, assistant professor of political science at the University at Albany, agreed.

“While the Agni-V might be usable against Pakistan, its primary mission would involve strikes on China,” he told Al Jazeera. “China’s east coast, where its most economically and politically important cities are situated, is hard to reach from India and requires long-range missiles.”

Missile race across South Asia

India and Pakistan have been steadily expanding their missile arsenals in recent years, unveiling new systems with increasing reach.

Before announcing the ARFC, Pakistan showcased the Fatah-4, a cruise missile with a 750km range and the capability to carry both conventional and nuclear warheads.

India, meanwhile, is working on Agni-VI, which is expected to have a range exceeding 10,000km and carry multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), a capability already present in Agni-V.

MIRV-enabled missiles can carry several nuclear warheads, each capable of striking a separate target, significantly boosting their destructive potential.

Mansoor Ahmed, an honorary lecturer at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University, said India’s latest test demonstrates its growing intercontinental missile capabilities.

“With India working on different variants of Agni with multiple capabilities, this test was a technological demonstrator for India’s emerging submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) capability,” Ahmed said.

“Depending on the configuration of the warheads for India’s SLBMs, India will be able to deploy anywhere between 200-300 warheads on its SSBN force alone over the next decade,” he added. SSBNs (ship, submersible, ballistic, nuclear) are nuclear-powered submarines designed to carry SLBMs armed with nuclear warheads. India currently has two SSBNs in service, with two more under construction.

Pakistan, by contrast, does not possess long-range missiles or nuclear submarines. Its longest-range operational ballistic missile, the Shaheen-III, has a range of 2,750km.

“Pakistan also has South Asia’s first MIRV-enabled ballistic missile called Ababeel, which can strike up to 2,200km range, but it is the shortest-ranged MIRV-enabled system deployed by any nuclear-armed state,” Ahmed said.

Tughral Yamin, a former Pakistani army brigadier and nuclear policy scholar, said the countries’ missile ambitions reflect divergent priorities.

“Pakistan’s programme is entirely Indian-specific and defensive in nature, while India’s ambitions extend beyond the subcontinent. Its long-range systems are designed for global power projection, particularly vis-a-vis China, and to establish itself as a great power with credible deterrence against major states,” said Yamin, author of The Evolution of Nuclear Deterrence in South Asia.

But some experts say Pakistan’s missile development programme isn’t only about India.

Ashley J Tellis, the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), said that while “India wants to be able to range China and Pakistan,” Islamabad is building the capability to keep Israel – and even the US – in its range, in addition to India.

“The conventional missile force in both countries is designed to strike critical targets without putting manned strike aircraft at risk,” Tellis told Al Jazeera.

US concerns over Pakistan’s ambitions, quiet acceptance of India’s rise

Pakistan’s missile programme came under intense spotlight in December last year when a senior White House official warned of Islamabad’s growing ambitions.

Jon Finer, serving in the then-Biden administration, described Pakistan’s pursuit of advanced missile technology as an “emerging threat” to the United States.

“If the trend continues, Pakistan will have the capability to strike targets well beyond South Asia, including in the United States,” Finer said during an event at the CEIP.

By contrast, Tellis said India’s growing arsenal is not viewed as destabilising by Washington or its allies.

“Pakistan’s capabilities in contrast are viewed as unsettling because the early history of its nuclear programme had anti-Western overtones, sentiments that have taken on a specific anti-US colouration after 9/11 and the Abbottabad raid,” Tellis explained, referring to the US capture of Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan in 2011.

Ahmed, the Canberra-based academic, said India’s long-range missile development is openly supported by Western powers as part of the US-led Asia Pacific strategy.

“The US and European powers have viewed and encouraged India to act as a net security provider. The India-US civil nuclear deal and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) waiver effectively gave India de facto nuclear weapons status without signing the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),” he said.

The NPT is a Cold War-era treaty aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy and advancing the goal of nuclear disarmament. It formally recognises only the United States, Russia, China, France and Britain as nuclear weapons states.

But the 2008 waiver from the NSG – a club of 48 nations that sell nuclear material and technology – allowed India to engage in global nuclear trade despite not being an NPT signatory, a unique status that elevated its global standing.

Clary from the University of Albany, however, pointed out that unlike the Biden administration, the current Trump White House has not expressed any concerns about Pakistan’s missile programme – or about India’s Agni-V test.

“For now, so long as Pakistan keeps its missile tests limited to ranges already demonstrated by the Shaheen-III and Ababeel, I don’t expect Western governments to concern themselves overly with South Asia’s missile developments,” he said. “There are more than enough other problems to keep them busy.”

US president, who has claimed credit for the truce in May, says planes were being shot out of the air.

United States President Donald Trump has said up to five fighter jets were shot down during the recent India-Pakistan conflict, which erupted after an April attack in Indian-administered Kashmir brought the nuclear-armed neighbours to the cusp of their fifth all-out war, before a ceasefire in May.

Trump, who made his remarks at a dinner with a number of Republican US lawmakers at the White House on Friday, did not specify which side’s jets he was referring to.

“In fact, planes were being shot out of the air. Five, five, four or five, but I think five jets were shot down actually,” Trump said while talking about the India-Pakistan hostilities, without elaborating or providing further detail.

Pakistan has claimed it downed five Indian planes in air-to-air combat.

India’s highest-ranking general said in late May that India switched tactics after suffering losses in the air on the first day of hostilities and established an advantage before a ceasefire was announced three days later.

India also claimed it downed “a few planes” of Pakistan. Islamabad denied suffering any losses of planes but acknowledged its airbases suffered hits.

Truce deal

Trump has repeatedly claimed credit, and complained he has not been feted for it, for the ceasefire between India and Pakistan that he announced on social media on May 10 after Washington held talks with both sides.

India has contradicted Trump’s claims that the ceasefire resulted from his intervention and his threats to sever trade talks.

New Delhi’s stated position has been that it reached an agreement bilaterally with Pakistan, and that they must solve their problems directly and with no outside involvement.

India is an increasingly important US partner in Washington’s effort to counter China’s influence in Asia, while Pakistan is a US ally, finding a new lease of diplomatic favour in the Trump administration.

The White House on Thursday said, however, that no Trump visit was scheduled to Pakistan “at this time” after widespread local reports of a trip.

The April attack in Indian-administered Kashmir killed 26 people and led to heavy fighting between the two sides in the latest escalation of a decades-old rivalry.

New Delhi blamed the attack on Pakistan, which denied responsibility, while calling for a neutral investigation.

Washington condemned the attack but did not directly blame Islamabad.

On May 7, Indian jets bombed sites across the border that New Delhi described as “terrorist infrastructure”, setting off an exchange of attacks between the two countries by fighter jets, missiles, drones, and artillery that killed dozens until the ceasefire was reached.

New Delhi put into ‘abeyance’ its participation in the 1960 transboundary treaty after 26 people were killed in Indian-administered Kashmir in April.

India will never restore the Indus Waters Treaty with neighbouring Pakistan, and the water flowing there will be diverted for internal use, says federal Home Minister Amit Shah.

India put into “abeyance” its participation in the 1960 treaty, which governs the usage of the Indus River system, after 26 people were killed in Indian-administered Kashmir in April, in what New Delhi described as an act of terror backed by Pakistan.

Pakistan denied involvement in the incident, which led to days of fighting between the two nuclear powers – their worst military escalation in decades, bringing them to the brink of another war.

Despite a ceasefire agreed upon by the two nations last month, Shah said his government would not restore the treaty, which guaranteed water access for 80 percent of Pakistan’s farms through three rivers originating in India.

“It will never be restored,” Shah told The Times of India newspaper in an interview on Saturday.

“We will take water that was flowing to Pakistan to Rajasthan by constructing a canal. Pakistan will be starved of water that it has been getting unjustifiably,” he added, referring to the northwestern Indian desert state.

The transboundary water agreement allows the two countries to share water flowing from the Indus basin, giving India control of three eastern Himalayan rivers – Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas – while Pakistan got control of the three western rivers – Jhelum, Chenab, and Indus.

The treaty also established the India-Pakistan Indus Commission, which is supposed to resolve any problems that arise. So far, it has survived previous armed conflicts and near-constant tensions between India and Pakistan over the past 65 years.

However, the comments from Shah, the most powerful minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s cabinet, have dimmed Islamabad’s hopes for negotiations on the treaty in the near term.

Pakistan has not yet responded to Shah’s comments. But it has said in the past that the treaty has no provision for one side to unilaterally pull back, and that any blocking of river water flowing to Pakistan will be considered “an act of war”.

“The treaty can’t be amended, nor can it be terminated by any party unless both agree,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said last month.

Islamabad is also exploring a legal challenge to India’s decision to hold the treaty in abeyance under international law.

Legal experts told Al Jazeera in April that the treaty cannot be unilaterally suspended, and that it can only be modified by mutual agreement between the parties.

“India has used the word ‘abeyance’, and there is no such provision to ‘hold it in abeyance’ in the treaty,” Ahmer Bilal Soofi, a Pakistani lawyer, told Al Jazeera. “It also violates customary international laws relating to upper and lower riparian, where the upper riparian cannot stop the water promise for the lower riparian.”

Anuttama Banerji, a political analyst based in New Delhi, told Al Jazeera in April that the treaty might continue, but not in its present form.

“Instead, it will be up for ‘revision’, ‘review’ and ‘modification’ – all three meaning different things – considering newer challenges such as groundwater depletion and climate change were not catered for in the original treaty,” Banerji said.

Trump has repeatedly said he averted a nuclear war, saved millions of lives – and grumbled that he got no credit for it.

Pakistan says it would recommend United States President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, an accolade that he has said he craves.

In May, a surprise announcement by Trump of a ceasefire brought an abrupt end to a four-day conflict between nuclear-armed foes India and Pakistan.

Trump has since repeatedly said that he averted a nuclear war, saved millions of lives and grumbled that he got no credit for it.

Pakistan agrees that US diplomatic intervention ended the fighting, but India says it was a bilateral agreement between the two militaries.

“President Trump demonstrated great strategic foresight and stellar statesmanship through robust diplomatic engagement with both Islamabad and New Delhi, which de-escalated a rapidly deteriorating situation,” Islamabad said in a statement posted on X.

“This intervention stands as a testament to his role as a genuine peacemaker and his commitment to conflict resolution through dialogue.”

Governments can nominate people for the Nobel Peace Prize. There was no immediate response from Washington, DC, or New Delhi.

Some analysts in Pakistan said the move might persuade Trump to think again about potentially joining Israel in striking Iran’s nuclear facilities. Pakistan has condemned Israel’s action as a violation of international law and a threat to regional stability.

In a social media post on Friday, Trump gave a long list of conflicts he said he had resolved, including India and Pakistan and the so-called Abraham Accords in his first term between Israel and some Muslim-majority countries. He added: “I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize no matter what I do.”

Pandering to Trump’s ‘ego’?

Trump has repeatedly said that he is willing to mediate between India and Pakistan over the disputed Kashmir region, their main source of enmity. Islamabad, which has long called for international attention to Kashmir, is delighted.

But his stance has upended US policy in South Asia, which had favoured India as a counterweight to China, and put in question previously close relations between Trump and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Pakistan’s move to nominate Trump came in the same week its army chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, met the US president for lunch. It was the first time that a Pakistani military leader had been invited to the White House when a civilian government was in place in Islamabad.

Trump’s planned meeting with Modi at the G7 summit in Canada last week did not take place after the US president left early, but the two later spoke by phone, in which Modi said “India does not and will never accept mediation” in its dispute with Pakistan, according to the Indian government.

Mushahid Hussain, a former chair of the Senate Defence Committee in Pakistan’s parliament, suggested nominating Trump for the peace prize was justified.

“Trump is good for Pakistan,” he said. “If this panders to Trump’s ego, so be it. All the European leaders have been sucking up to him big time.”

But the move was not universally applauded in Pakistan, where Trump’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza has inflamed passions.

“Israel’s sugar daddy in Gaza and cheerleader of its attacks on Iran isn’t a candidate for any prize,” said Talat Hussain, a prominent Pakistani television political talk show host, in a post on X.

“And what if he starts to kiss Modi on both cheeks again after a few months?”

Donald Trump had said last month that the nuclear-armed neighbours agreed to a ceasefire after talks mediated by the US.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made it clear to United States President Donald Trump that a ceasefire between India and Pakistan after a four-day conflict in May was achieved through talks between the two militaries and not US mediation, a top diplomat in New Delhi says.

“PM Modi told President Trump clearly that during this period, there was no talk at any stage on subjects like India-U.S. trade deal or US mediation between India and Pakistan,” Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said in a press statement on Wednesday.

“Talks for ceasing military action happened directly between India and Pakistan through existing military channels, and on the insistence of Pakistan. Prime Minister Modi emphasised that India has not accepted mediation in the past and will never do,” he said.

Misri said the two leaders spoke over the phone late on Tuesday on Trump’s insistence after the two leaders were unable to meet on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Canada, which Modi attended as a guest. The call lasted 35 minutes.

Trump had said last month that the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours agreed to the ceasefire after talks mediated by the US, and that the hostilities ended after he urged the countries to focus on trade instead of war.

There was no immediate comment from the White House on the Modi-Trump call.

Pakistan has previously said the ceasefire was agreed after its military returned a call the Indian military had initiated on May 7.

In an interview with Al Jazeera in May, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar rejected claims that Washington mediated the truce and insisted Islamabad acted independently.

The conflict between India and Pakistan was triggered by an April 22 attack in Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Kashmir, in which 26 civilians, almost all tourists, were killed. India blamed armed groups allegedly backed by Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denied.

On May 7, India launched missile strikes at multiple sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Over the next three days, the two countries exchanged artillery and air raids, hitting each other’s airbases.

Pakistan said at least 51 people, including 11 soldiers and several children, were killed in Indian attacks.

India’s military said at least five members of the armed forces were killed in Operation Sindoor, under which it launched the cross-border strikes.

Misri said Trump expressed his support for India’s fight against “terrorism” and that Modi told him Operation Sindoor was still on.

Islamabad, Pakistan – When Indian Minister of Defence Rajnath Singh visited the Indian Navy’s aircraft carrier INS Vikrant on May 30, nearly three weeks after a ceasefire was announced with Pakistan after a four-day conflict, he had stern words for Islamabad.

Wearing an Indian Navy baseball cap, with his initial “R” emblazoned on it, Singh declared that Pakistan was fortunate the Indian Navy had not been called upon during the recent hostilities.

“Despite remaining silent, the Indian Navy succeeded in tying down the Pakistani Army. Just imagine what will happen when someone who can keep a country’s army locked in a bottle, even by remaining silent, speaks up?” Singh said, standing in front of a Russian-made MiG-29 fighter jet on the deck of the 262-metre-long (860 feet) ship.

Just two days later, on June 1, the Pakistan Navy issued a pointed response. In a message posted on X, it announced a two-day exercise, “focusing on countering sub-conventional and asymmetric threats across all major ports and harbours of Pakistan”.

PN conducted 2-day Ex focusing on countering sub-conventional & asymmetric threats across all major ports & harbours of Pak, aimed at validating & refining Tactics, Techniques & Procedures to ensure robust defence of critical maritime infrastructure against asymmetric threats.1/3 pic.twitter.com/R1IsajwyBB

— DGPR (Navy) (@dgprPaknavy) June 1, 2025

These symbolic shows of strength followed India’s “Operation Sindoor” and Pakistan’s “Operation Bunyan Marsoos“, the countries’ respective codenames for the four-day conflict that ended in a ceasefire on May 10.

The standoff was triggered by an April 22 attack in Pahalgam, in Indian-administered Kashmir, in which 26 civilians, almost all tourists, were killed. India blamed armed groups allegedly backed by Pakistan, a charge Islamabad denied.

On May 7, India launched missile strikes at multiple sites in Pakistan’s Punjab province and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, killing at least 51 people, including 11 soldiers and several children. Over the next three days, the two countries exchanged artillery and air power, hitting each other’s airbases.

The 96 hours of conflict brought 1.6 billion people to the brink of war. But while the navies largely remained passive observers, they monitored each other’s movements – and were ready for action.

Satellite imagery showed that the INS Vikrant moved towards Pakistan soon after the Pahalgam attack and remained deployed for four days in the Arabian Sea before returning to its base in Karnataka.

Pakistan also mobilised its fleet, which was bolstered by the docking of a Turkish naval ship in Karachi on May 2. According to the Pakistani Navy, Turkish personnel engaged in “a series of professional interactions” with their counterparts.

Now, even amid the current pause in military tensions, analysts say Singh’s remarks and Pakistan’s naval drills highlight the growing part that maritime forces could play in the next chapter of their conflict. This is a role the Indian and Pakistani navies are well-versed in.

Early naval conflicts

After independence from Britain in August 1947, India inherited two-thirds of British India’s naval assets.

These saw no use during the first India-Pakistan war in 1947, over the contested Himalayan region of Kashmir. India and Pakistan both administer parts of Kashmir, along with China, which governs two thin strips. India claims all of Kashmir, while Pakistan claims all the parts not controlled by China, its ally.

By the 1965 war, also over Kashmir, Pakistan had expanded its fleet with aid from the United States and United Kingdom, its Cold War allies. It had acquired Ghazi, a long-range submarine, giving it an edge over India, which lacked a submarine at the time, though it owned an aircraft carrier. Pakistan, to date, does not have an aircraft carrier.

While the land war started on September 6, the Pakistan Navy joined the conflict on the night of September 7-8. A fleet of seven warships and submarine PNS Ghazi left Karachi harbour and made their way towards the Indian naval base of Dwarka in the western state of Gujarat, roughly 350km (217 miles) away.

They were tasked with carrying out the “bombardment of Dwarka about midnight using 50 rounds per ship”, according to the Pakistan Navy’s official account, targeting the base’s radar and other installations.

The selection of Dwarka was significant from a historical and strategic perspective. The city is home to one of the most sacred sites for Hindus, the Somnath Temple, on which the Pakistan Navy named its operation.

Militarily, the radar installations in Dwarka were used to provide guidance to the Indian Air Force. Knocking them out would have made it harder for India to launch aerial attacks against Pakistani cities, especially Karachi. That, in turn, would have forced India to send out its warships from the nearby port of Bombay (now Mumbai) – and PNS Ghazi, the submarine, could have ambushed them.

But the Pakistani plan only partly worked. Many Indian warships were under maintenance, and so the Indian Navy did not send them out to chase the Pakistani fleet.

According to the Pakistan Navy’s accounts, after firing about 350 rounds, the operation ended in “four minutes” and all its ships returned safely.

Syed Muhammad Obaidullah, a former commodore in the Pakistan Navy, recalled the attack.

“We were able to send eight vessels, seven ships and a submarine – that surprised the Indians, as our ships targeted the radar station used to assist Indian planes,” Obaidullah told Al Jazeera.

Muhammad Shareh Qazi, a Lahore-based maritime security expert, added that the operation was a tactical surprise, but did not lead to any gains in territory or of the maritime continental shelf.

“All our ships returned safely, without resistance, but it was only an operational-level success for the PN, not a strategic one,” he said, referring to the Pakistan Navy.

Official Indian Navy records claim that most of the shells fired by Pakistani ships caused no damage and remained unexploded.

Anjali Ghosh, a professor of international relations at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, in her book India’s Foreign Policy, described the attack as “daring” but symbolic rather than strategically meaningful.

Decisive turn in 1971

The 1971 war, fought over East Pakistan’s secession to become Bangladesh, saw more substantial naval engagements.

India launched two operations – Trident and Python – which dealt major blows to Pakistan’s Navy, sinking several ships, including the destroyer PNS Khaibar and minesweeper PNS Muhafiz, and destroying fuel tanks at Karachi Harbour.

Uday Bhaskar, a former commodore in the Indian Navy, said the navy played a pivotal role in India’s 1971 victory.

“The naval role enabled the final outcome on land,” Bhaskar, the current director of the Society for Policy Studies, an independent think tank based in New Delhi, told Al Jazeera.

Pakistan also suffered the loss of its prized submarine Ghazi, which sank while laying mines near Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, home to India’s Eastern Naval Command.

The one major victory for the Pakistani Navy was its torpedoing of the Indian frigate INS Khukri using its submarine Hangor, which killed more than 170 Indian sailors.

Qazi, who is also an assistant professor at Lahore’s Punjab University, said that the Indian Navy replicated the Pakistani playbook from the 1965 war in the way it surprised the Pakistan Navy.

“India caused a heavy blow to Pakistan and our naval capabilities were severely dented,” he said.

Diverging strategies

Since the 1971 war, India and Pakistan have approached different naval strategies.

Obaidullah, who retired from the Pakistan Navy in 2008, said that India has tried to build a “blue water navy” capable of projecting power across oceans. The idea: “To assert its dominance in [the] Indian Ocean,” he said.

Qazi, the maritime expert, agreed, saying that the Indian Navy has focused not just on building a numerical advantage in its naval assets but also on partnerships with nations such as Russia, which have helped it develop a powerful fleet.

“The Indian Navy now has the ability to conduct missions that can cover long distances, all the way down to Mauritius near southern Africa, or even some adventures in [the] Pacific Ocean as well,” he said.

As the world’s fifth-largest economy, India has invested heavily in naval development.

According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based research institute focusing on defence and security issues, India has 29 principal surface combat vessels, including two aircraft carriers, 12 destroyers, 15 frigates and 18 submarines, of which two are nuclear-powered.

Pakistan, by contrast, has prioritised its land and air forces. Its navy has grown more slowly, mainly through cooperation with China and Turkiye. It regularly holds major naval exercises with its allies, with the last one taking place in February this year.

IISS data shows that Pakistan’s navy lacks aircraft carriers and destroyers but includes 11 frigates, eight submarines and at least 21 patrol vessels.

Obaidullah explained that Pakistan’s naval ambitions and objectives are very different from those of India.

“India aims to project global power. We have a defensive navy to secure our sea lines of communication and deter aggression,” the former naval officer said. With more than 95 percent of Pakistan’s trade sea-based, protecting maritime routes is its top priority.

Maritime expert Qazi also said that the Pakistani Navy is focused on defending its “littoral zones”. From a naval perspective, a “littoral zone” is a critically important area close to coastlines, unlike the open ocean’s “blue water” expanse. It is within this space that countries engage in coastal defence.

“Pakistan has a small economy, and we do not have blue water ambitions. We do not have the capacity to build a fleet, nor [do] we need one,” Qazi said. “Our defence paradigm is about defending our coastlines, and for that, we have our submarines, which carry cruise missiles.”

Naval engagements in future conflicts?

The latest conflict saw both conventional and modern warfare, including drones used to strike deep inside each other’s territory. But Singh’s May 30 remarks suggest a more assertive naval posture in future conflicts, say analysts.

“If Pakistan does any unholy act this time, it is possible that the opening will be done by our navy,” Singh said during his speech on May 30.

Bhaskar, the Indian commodore who retired in 2007, agreed that future conflicts could see naval escalation.

“If another military conflict escalates, the probability of navies being actively involved is high,” he said.

Bashir Ali Abbas, a New Delhi-based maritime affairs expert and former fellow at the Stimson Center, in Washington, DC, said that naval platforms inherently serve multiple roles.

Abbas said that warships and submarines can switch from patrolling missions or exercises to operational missions on short notice. But that would carry risks of its own.

“Should the Indian Navy play a substantial role in operations against Pakistan following the next crisis, then the element of escalation control practically disappears. Any ship-on-ship, or ship-on-land engagement will imply that India and Pakistan are at war,” he told Al Jazeera, adding that the risk of inadvertent nuclear escalation is also potentially highest in the nuclear domain.

Qazi, however, said that Singh’s statement was ambiguous about whether the Indian Navy would engage in surveillance or aggression.

Any attack on Karachi, Pakistan’s economic hub, would provoke a strong response, the Lahore-based analyst said.

“I believe India will choose to play hide and seek like it did this time,” Qazi said. But he added that there was a “high probability” that India could attack Pakistan’s naval installations on land, including its planes and radar stations. And that, he said, was an “alarming possibility”.

For the past three decades, Vipan Kumar has been importing Himalayan pink salt from Pakistan to sell in India.

The 50-year-old trader who is based in Amritsar in Punjab, the spiritual hub of Sikhs in India, told Al Jazeera that the recent blanket ban on trade between the two countries following the massacre of 26 people, mostly Indian tourists, at Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir in April has brought that trade to a screeching halt after New Delhi banned imports of all Pakistani goods, including those routed through third countries.

Kumar says he typically sold 2,000 to 2,500 tonnes of pink salt a quarter. “The profit margin is very thin, but still the business is feasible because of the bulk sales. But the ban has completely halted the pink salt business. We don’t know when the situation would turn normal,” he told Al Jazeera.

The Himalayan Pink Salt has a pinkish tint due to a trace of minerals, including iron, and is used in cooking, decorative lamps and spa treatments. Hindus also prefer to use this salt during their religious fasts as it is a non-marine salt.

Mined in Pakistan

The Himalayan pink salt is mined at the Khewra Salt Mine in the Punjab province of Pakistan, the second largest salt mine in the world after Sifto Salt Mine in Ontario, Canada, and located about 250 kilometres (155 miles) from the city of Lahore, which also at times lends its name to the pink salt – Lahori namak, which is Hindi for salt.

The salt mine contains about 82 million metric tonnes of salt, and 0.36 million metric tonnes is extracted every year. About 70 percent of the salt is used for industrial purposes, and the rest for edible use.

“The mine is very scenic and attracts several thousand tourists every year,” Fahad Ali, a journalist who lives close to the mine, told Al Jazeera.

It has approximately 30 salt processing units where the huge rock salt boulders are hand-mined and loaded on trucks before being dispatched, he said.

The salt is exported in a raw form to India, where importers process, grind and pack it for sale.

Prices swell

India mostly depends on Pakistan for this pink salt.

But after the Pahalgam massacre, India announced an end to all trade with Pakistan, which reciprocated the ban. The halt in trade was one of a series of diplomatic and economic tit-for-tat measures the neighbours took against each other before engaging in an intense four-day exchange of missiles and drones that took them to the cusp of a full-fledged war. On May 10, they stepped back from the brink, agreeing to a truce. However, the trade ban remains in place.

Salt traders in India told Al Jazeera that the current pause in imports has started to hamper their business as prices are starting to rise.

“It has been barely over a month since the announcement of the ban, and prices have already gone up,” said Gurveen Singh, an Amritsar-based trader, who blamed traders with existing stocks for selling them at higher prices.

“The salt which was sold in the retail market for 45 rupees to 50 rupees per kilogramme [$0.53-$0.58] before the ban is now being sold for at least 60 rupees per kilogramme [$0.70],” Singh said.

In some places, the price is even higher. In Kolkata this week, pink salt was being sold in markets for between 70 rupees and 80 rupees per kilogramme [$0.82-$0.93].

“We have no idea when the situation would return to normal. There would be complete crisis once the stocks get exhausted,” he said.

The rates, however, go up even more on the other side of India in the east due to the transportation cost incurred to send the salt from Amritsar.

Traders in Kolkata told Al Jazeera that the prices of the salt have gone up by 15-20 percent in the city, but that has not hampered demand as yet.

“The Himalayan rock salt remains in huge demand across the year, especially during festivals when people remain on fast and prefer the pink salt over the marine salt that is produced in India,” said Sanjay Agarwal, a manager in a private firm that deals in pink salt.

Dinobondhu Mukherjee, a salt trader in Kolkata, said that the government should look for an alternative country to procure this salt. “The relations between the two countries are usually strained, and that affects the trade. Our government should look for alternative countries to procure the salt so that the supply chain is never disrupted,” Mukherjee told Al Jazeera.

Pakistani exporters, however, said that the Indian ban would have a “positive impact” on their trade. Indian traders, they said, brand their salt as their own to sell in the international market at higher prices.

“The recent ban would help us to expand further as it would wipe off the competition from India,” Faizan Panjwani, chief operating officer of Karachi-based RM Salt, told Al Jazeera.

“Undoubtedly, India is a big market and has a lot of potential, but we want to send the salt by doing value addition and not in raw form. Our salt is already in huge demand globally,” he said.

Trade decline

Trade between the two countries has been decreasing since the 2019 attack on security forces in Pulwama in Indian-administered Kashmir in which 40 security personnel were killed. In response, India revoked the non-discriminatory market status – better known as Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status – that it had granted to Pakistan. It also imposed heavy tariffs of 200 percent on imports from Pakistan.

According to India’s Ministry of Commerce, the country’s exports to Pakistan from April 2024 to January 2025 stood at $447.7m, while Pakistan’s exports to India during the same period were a paltry $420,000.

In 2024, India imported about 642 metric tonnes of pink salt, which was far lower than the 74,457 metric tonnes imported in 2018 – largely as a result of the high tariffs.

Prior to the latest ban, India’s major exports to Pakistan included cotton, organic chemicals, spices, food products, pharmaceuticals, plastic articles, and dairy products. India normally imports copper articles, raw cotton, fruits, salt, minerals and some speciality chemicals from Pakistan.

“The implementation of the heavy duty had raised the import price of the salt from 3.50 rupees [$0.041] per kilogramme to 24.50 rupees [$0.29] per kilogramme in 2019, even though the salt was being routed from the third country like Dubai,” trader Kumar told Al Jazeera.

“Still, it had not impacted our business as the demand was too high, and buyers were ready to pay the price. But the government, this time, has also prohibited the entry of Pakistani goods from any third country, which has brought the supply to a complete standstill,” he said.

One unusual industry that is being hurt by the ban – lamps made from the Himalayan pink rock salt that are used as decorative lights and even tout unproven claims of being air purifiers.

“We have to look for an alternative country if the supply of rock salt doesn’t come from Pakistan,” said Global Aroma founder Deep, who uses a single name. “The prices of the lamps had already increased after the imposition of a 200 percent tariff in 2019, and the procurement from any other country will lead to further escalation of cost.”

General Anil Chauhan, India’s chief of defence staff, has admitted that an unspecified number of fighter jets were shot down during its conflict with Pakistan last month.

The acknowledgement of aerial losses by the country’s highest ranking general comes weeks after the two South Asian neighbours were engaged in their heaviest fighting in decades, which involved fighter jets and cruise missiles.

Indian officials had previously refused to confirm or deny Pakistani claims of downing Indian jets. The conflict was triggered after gunmen killed 26 tourists in India-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam town on April 22.

India’s first official admission of a loss of fighter jets came during Chauhan’s interviews on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore.

What was the conflict between India and Pakistan?

India carried out strikes on what it called “terror infrastructure” in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir on May 7 in retaliation for the Pahalgam attack. India blamed armed groups backed by Pakistan for the April 22 attack.

An armed group called The Resistance Front (TRF) claimed responsibility for the Pahalgam killings. India accused the TRF of being an offshoot of the Pakistan-based armed group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Pakistan denied involvement, condemning the Pahalgam attack and calling for a neutral investigation.

India claimed to have targeted at least six cities in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir on the first day of the conflict. Pakistan initially asserted that it had downed six Indian fighter jets in retaliation. But a senior Pakistan official told Al Jazeera five Indian aircraft were lost in the aerial battle.

India did not confirm or deny the Pakistani claims. “Losses are a part of combat,” Air Marshal AK Bharti, India’s director general of air operations, said at a news conference on May 11.

The Indian embassy in China called reports of the downing of jets “disinformation”.

After that, tit-for-tat cross-border attacks across the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border between India- and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, rattled the region, renewing fears of a nuclear war.

On May 10, United States President Donald Trump announced that the two countries had reached a ceasefire, potentially averting a “nuclear disaster”. India and Pakistan have given competing claims on casualties in the fighting, but more than 70 people were killed on both sides.

Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in full but administer only parts of the Muslim-majority Himalayan territory.

Here is what Chauhan said in recent interviews with the Reuters news agency and Bloomberg TV:

On the downing of Indian fighter jets

Chauhan admitted that India suffered air losses on the first day of fighting without giving details.

In an interview with Reuters, he said: “What was important is why did these losses occur and what we’ll do after that.”

The Indian general said that after the losses, the Indian army “rectified tactics” and then went back on May 7, 8 and 10 “in large numbers to hit airbases deep inside Pakistan, penetrated all their air defences with impunity, carried out precision strikes”. He added that the Indian air force “flew all types of aircraft with all types of ordnances” on May 10.

Islamabad acknowledged that its airbases suffered some minimal losses but denied that it lost any planes.

When a Bloomberg reporter asked Chauhan about Pakistan’s claims that six Indian jets were downed, Chauhan responded that this information was incorrect.

He went on to say: “What is important is … not the jets being downed but why they were downed.” Some media outlets inferred that his statement appeared to imply that a number of jets were lost in the aerial battle.

The general did not provide details about the number of jets downed or specifics about what these rectified tactics were.

The Pakistani military said India did not fly its fighter jets in the conflict again after suffering the air losses.

On the risks of nuclear war

Media reports suggested that some attacks were near Pakistan’s nuclear sites but the nuclear infrastructure itself was not a target.

“Most of the strikes were delivered with pinpoint accuracy, some even to a metre [3.3ft] to whatever was our selected mean point of impact,” Chauhan said in the interview with Reuters.

Chauhan had previously provided assurances that India was not considering using nuclear weapons during the conflict. The chairman of Pakistan’s joint chiefs of staff, General Sahir Shamshad Mirza, has done the same for his country.

“I think there’s a lot of space before that nuclear threshold is crossed, a lot of signalling before that. I think nothing like that happened. There’s a lot of space for conventional operations which has been created, and this will be the new norm,” Chauhan said.

The Indian general added that on both sides, the most “rational people are in uniform” during conflict because they understand the consequences of “this kind of conflict”.

“I found both sides displaying a lot of rationality in their thoughts as well as actions. So why should we assume that in the nuclear domain there will be irrationality on someone else’s part?”

On Chinese role

The Indian chief of defence staff said that while Pakistan enjoys a close alliance with China, there was no sign that Beijing helped Islamabad during the conflict.

China sits on India’s northern and eastern borders and controls a barely inhabited northeastern zone in Kashmir called Aksai Chin.

“We didn’t find any unusual activity in the operational or tactical depth of our northern borders, and things were generally all right,” Chauhan said.

When Chauhan was asked whether China provided Pakistan with intelligence information such as satellite imagery, the Indian general responded by saying that such information is commercially available and Pakistan could have obtained it from China or other sources.

However, Chauhan said “almost 80 percent of the equipment” in Pakistan has been procured from China in the past few years.

From 2020 to 2025, China supplied 81 percent of Pakistan’s arms imports, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Chinese jets got a boost after media reports said Pakistan used Chinese-manufactured J-10C fighter jets in the air battle. The Chinese government did not officially confirm that the J-10C jets were used to down Indian jets, but China Central Television, a state broadcaster, posted on social media on May 17 that the jets achieved actual combat results for the first time.

What’s next

Chauhan said that while hostilities have ceased, India would “respond precisely and decisively should there be any further terror attacks emanating from Pakistan”. He added that this will be a new normal for India.

“So that has its own dynamics as far [as] the armed forces are concerned. It will require us to be prepared 24/7.”

The president of the main opposition Indian National Congress party said Chauhan’s admission warrants a review of India’s defence preparedness.

“There are some very important questions which need to be asked. These can only be asked if a Special Session of the Parliament is immediately convened,” Mallikarjun Kharge wrote in an X post on Saturday.

Referring to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he added: “The Modi Govt has misled the nation. The fog of war is now clearing.”

“We salute [the Indian military’s] resolute courage and bravery,” Kharge said. “However, a comprehensive strategic review is the need of the hour.”

The Congress party has called the Pahalgam attack a “security and intelligence failure” and sought accountability, given that India-administered Kashmir is directly governed from New Delhi.

General Anil Chauhan appears to confirm India lost at least one aircraft during the brief conflict with Pakistan earlier this month.

India’s chief of defence staff says the country suffered initial losses in the air during a recent military conflict with neighbouring Pakistan, but declined to give details.

“What was important is, why did these losses occur, and what we will do after that,” General Anil Chauhan told the Reuters news agency on Saturday on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore.

India and Pakistan were engaged in a four-day conflict this month, their worst standoff since 1999, before a ceasefire was agreed on May 10. More than 70 people were killed in missile, drone and artillery fire on both sides, but there are competing claims on the casualties.

India says more than 100 “terrorists” were killed in its “precision strikes” on several “terror camps” across Pakistan, which rejects the claim, saying more than 30 Pakistani civilians were killed in the Indian attacks.

New Delhi, meanwhile, says nearly two dozen civilians were killed on the Indian side, most of them in Indian-administered Kashmir, along the disputed border.

The fighting between the two nuclear powers was triggered by an attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir on April 22 that killed 26 people, almost all of them tourists. New Delhi blamed Pakistan for supporting the armed group behind the attack, an allegation Islamabad denied.

During their conflict, Pakistan had also claimed to have downed at least five Indian military jets, including at least three Rafale fighters. But Chauhan on Saturday dismissed it as “absolutely incorrect”, confirming his country had lost at least one aircraft.

“I think what is important is that, not the jet being down, but why they were being down,” he told Bloomberg TV in a separate interview in Singapore.

On May 11, a day after the ceasefire, India’s Air Marshal AK Bharti told reporters in New Delhi that “all our pilots are back home”, adding that “we are in a combat scenario, and that losses are a part of combat”.

Chauhan said on Saturday India switched tactics after suffering losses in the air on the first day of conflict and established a decisive advantage.

“So we rectified tactics and then went back on the [May] 7th, 8th and 10th in large numbers to hit airbases deep inside Pakistan, penetrated all their air defences with impunity, carried out precision strikes,” he said.

Islamabad has denied it suffered any losses of planes but has acknowledged its airbases suffered some hits, although losses were minimal.

Chauhan said while the fighting had ceased, the Indian government had made it clear that it would respond “precisely and decisively should there be any further terror attacks emanating from Pakistan”.

“So that has its own dynamics as far [as] the armed forces are concerned. It will require us to be prepared 24/7,” he said.

Chauhan also said that although Pakistan is closely allied with China, which borders India in the north and the northeast, there was no sign of any actual help from Beijing during the conflict.

“While this was unfolding from [April] 22nd onwards, we didn’t find any unusual activity in the operational or tactical depth of our northern borders, and things were generally all right,” he told Reuters.

Asked whether China may have provided any satellite imagery or other real-time intelligence to Pakistan during the conflict, Chauhan said such imagery was commercially available and could have been procured from China as well as other sources.

Islamabad, Pakistan – Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif visited Azerbaijan in February, and Turkiye only a month ago, in April.

Yet, this week, he was back in both countries, as part of a five-day, four-nation diplomatic blitzkrieg also including stops in Iran and Tajikistan, where Sharif will hold talks on Thursday and Friday. And he isn’t alone: Sharif is being accompanied by Army Chief Asim Munir — recently promoted to Pakistan’s only second-ever field marshal — and Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar.

Their destinations might be familiar, but the context has changed dramatically since Sharif’s previous visits.

More than two weeks after a four-day standoff between Pakistan and India – during which they exchanged missile and drone strikes – diplomacy has become the new battlefront between the South Asian neighbours.

India has launched a global diplomatic campaign, sending delegations to over 30 countries, accusing Pakistan of supporting “terrorist groups” responsible for attacks in India and Indian-administered Kashmir.

“We want to exhort the world to hold those responsible for cross-border terrorism accountable, those who have practiced this for 40 years against India, that is Pakistan. Their actions need to be called out,” said Randhir Jaiswal, spokesperson for India’s Ministry of External Affairs, last week.

On April 22, gunmen killed 26 people, most of them tourists, in Pahalgam, a hill resort in Indian-administered Kashmir in the worst such attack on civilians in years. India blamed the killings on The Resistance Front (TRF), which it alleges is linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based group designated as a “terrorist” entity by the United Nations. New Delhi accused Islamabad of complicity in the attacks.

Pakistan denied the allegations, calling for a “transparent, credible, independent” investigation.

Then, on May 7, India launched a series of missiles aimed at what it said was “terrorist infrastructure” in parts of Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Islamabad insisted that the missiles struck civilians, mosques and schools. More than 50 people, including at least 11 security personnel were killed in the Indian missile strikes.

This was followed by drone incursions and, on May 10, both sides fired missiles at each other’s military bases, as they stood on the brink of a full-fledged war before they agreed to a ceasefire that the US says it brokered.

Now, Pakistan, say officials and analysts, is looking to flip India’s narrative before the world — projecting itself as an advocate of peace and stability in South Asia, and New Delhi as the aggressor looking to stoke tensions.

‘We want peace’

On Wednesday, Sharif expressed willingness to engage in dialogue with India on “all matters,” if India reciprocates “in all sincerity.”

Speaking at a trilateral summit in Lachin, Azerbaijan, Sharif said trade could resume if India cooperated on all issues, including “counterterrorism.”

“I have said in all humility that we want peace in the region, and that requires talks on the table on issues which need urgent attention and amicable resolution, that is the issue of Kashmir, according to the resolutions of the United Nations and the Security Council, and as per the aspirations of the people of Kashmir,” he said.

Kashmir, a picturesque valley in the northeastern subcontinent, remains the root of conflict between the two nuclear-armed nations since their independence in 1947.

A 1948 UN resolution called for a plebiscite to determine Kashmir’s future, but eight decades later, it has yet to take place.

India and Pakistan each administer parts of Kashmir, while China controls two small regions. India claims the entire territory; Pakistan claims the portion administered by India, but not the areas held by its ally China.

Contrasting diplomacy

But there are other motivations driving Pakistan’s diplomatic outreach too, say officials and experts.

India’s diplomatic delegations that are currently touring the world include members from various political parties, including the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the opposition Indian National Congress (INC), projecting a unified stance.

In contrast, Pakistan’s current mission is led by top state officials, including Sharif and army chief Munir, widely considered the most powerful figure in the country.

The trip also reflects strategic alignment, say analysts. Turkiye, whose drones were used by Pakistan in the recent conflict, is a key defense partner.

“Pakistan’s defense cooperation with Turkey is especially deep,” said Christopher Clary, assistant professor of political science at the University at Albany.

“Evidence suggests several Turkish-origin systems were used in this recent clash, with varying levels of effectiveness, so there is much to talk about between the two,” he told Al Jazeera.

Khurram Dastgir Khan, a former federal minister for foreign affairs and defence, is part of a Pakistani delegation set to visit the US, UK and EU headquarters in Brussels next month.

He said the current trip by Sharif, Munir and Dar is at least partly about highlighting Pakistan’s capacity to wage a modern war against a larger adversary. “There is immense interest in how Pakistan fought the recent war,” Khan said.

“There are countries deeply interested in learning the details, what capabilities Pakistan used and what Indians had,” he added.

“This opens new strategic possibilities for Pakistan’s defence forces to provide training to others. We are battle-tested. This makes us highly sought after, not just in the region but globally.”

Pakistan relied heavily on Chinese-supplied weaponry, including the fighter jets and the missiles that it deployed against India, and the air defence systems it used to defend itself from Indian missiles.

Post-conflict narrative battle

Though both countries claimed victory after the conflict, the battle over narratives has since raged across social media and public forums.

Pakistan claims to have downed six Indian jets, a claim neither confirmed nor denied by India, while Indian missiles penetrated deep into Pakistani territory, revealing vulnerabilities in its air defenses.

India has also suspended the six-decade-old Indus Waters Treaty (IWT), a critical water-sharing agreement that is vital to Pakistan.

Recently, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Pakistanis to reject “terrorism.” “Live a life of peace, eat your bread or choose my bullet,” Modi said, during a speech in India’s Gujarat state.

He also criticised the IWT as “badly negotiated,” claiming it disadvantaged India.

Muhammad Shoaib, an academic and security analyst at Quaid-i-Azam University, said Modi’s remarks reflected “ultra-nationalism” and were targeted at a domestic audience.

“The Indian diplomatic teams won’t likely focus on what Pakistan says. They will only implicate Pakistan for terrorism and build their case. Meanwhile, the Pakistani delegation will likely use Modi’s statements and international law regarding the IWT to bolster their arguments,” he told Al Jazeera.

Khan, who is also a senior member of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN), the ruling party which premier Sharif belongs to, said the upcoming diplomatic mission that he will be part of will focus on issues like India’s suspension of the IWT.

“Our fundamental point is that Pakistan seeks to maintain lasting peace in South Asia, but three major hurdles are posed by Indian aggression,” he said.

The first, according to Khan, is “Indian-sponsored terrorism” in Pakistan, in which, he claimed, more than 20 people have been killed over the past four years. India has been accused by the US and Canada of transnational assassinations. In January 2024, Pakistan also accused India of carrying out killings on its soil. India denies involvement. Pakistan also accuses India of backing separatist groups in its Balochistan province — again, an allegation that India rejects.

“The second point is India’s utterly irresponsible suspension of the IWT,” Khan said.

“Pakistan has rightly said that any step by India to stop our water will be treated as an act of war. This is something that can bring all the region in conflict and I believe that if India acquires capability to divert waters in next six to ten years, and tries to do so, it will lead to a war,” Khan warned.

The third issue, Khan said, is Pakistan’s concern over India’s “status as a responsible nuclear power”.

In the past, New Delhi has frequently cited the nuclear proliferation facilitated by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear programme, as evidence that Islamabad cannot be trusted with the safe management of its nuclear weapons.

But in recent days, India’s internal security minister, Amit Shah — widely viewed as the country’s second-most powerful leader after Modi — has confirmed that India used its homegrown BrahMos missile against Pakistan during the recent military escalation.

The BrahMos – developed with Russia – is a supersonic cruise missile capable of Mach 3 – three times the speed of sound – and a range of 300 to 500 kilometers. It can carry both conventional and nuclear warheads and be launched from land, air, or sea.

Khan, who served as defense minister from 2017 to 2018, warned of “unimaginable consequences” from using such weapons.

“Once the missile is in the air, you cannot know what payload it carries until it hits the target. This is very, very irresponsible,” he said. “India has already shown recklessness when it mistakenly fired a missile into our territory a few years ago.”

Khan was referring to an incident in March 2022, when India fired a BrahMos “accidentally” in Pakistani territory, where it fell in a densely populated city of Mian Channu, roughly 500 kilometers south of capital Islamabad.

India at the time acknowledged that accidental launch was due to a “technical malfunction” and later sacked three air force officials.

Ceasefire holds, but tensions linger

While the conflict brought both countries to the edge of war, the ceasefire declared on May 10 has held, with troops gradually returning to peacetime positions.

Shoaib, also a research fellow at George Mason University in the US, expressed cautious optimism.

“Initiating hostilities is risky. No side wants to be seen as irresponsible. For that to break, it would take a major incident,” he said.

Tughral Yamin, a former military officer and researcher in Islamabad, noted that while diplomacy offers no guarantees, the ceasefire could last.

“India has seen that Pakistan is no cakewalk. It has both conventional and nuclear deterrence,” he told Al Jazeera. “Both sides will remain alert, and Pakistan must address weaknesses exposed in the standoff.”

Clary added that while the India-Pakistan relationship remains fragile, history suggests that intense clashes are often followed by calmer periods.

“It is reasonable for both countries and international observers to hope for the best but prepare for the worst over the next few months,” he said.

But Khan, the former minister, questioned Modi’s comments, after the military crisis, where the Indian PM said that any attack on the country’s soil would now be seen as worthy of a military response, and that New Delhi would effectively cease to draw any distinction between Pakistan’s military and non-state armed groups.

“The new stated policy of the Indian government is to attack Pakistan even after minor incidents, without waiting for evidence. This puts the entire region on edge,” he said. “This trigger-happy policy should concern not just Pakistan, but the entire world.”

Rizza Alee is from Indian-administered Kashmir. He takes us on a journey of his day-to-day life, and how it’s changed since May, when hostilities broke out  between India and Pakistan in Kashmir. His video diary shows the uncertainty that comes with living in a region affected by a decades-old conflict.

When India launched Operation Sindoor and Pakistan replied with Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos, the world braced for escalation. Analysts held their breath. Twitter exploded. The Line of Control – that jagged scar between two unfinished imaginations of nationhood – lit up again.

But if you think what happened earlier this month was merely a military exchange, you’ve missed the real story.

This was a war, yes, but not just of missiles. It was a war of narratives, orchestrated in headlines, hashtags, and nightly newsrooms. The battlefield was the media. The ammunition was discourse. And the casualties were nuance, complexity, and truth.

What we witnessed was the culmination of what scholars call discursive warfare — the deliberate construction of identity, legitimacy, and power through language. In the hands of Indian and Pakistani media, every act of violence was scripted, every image curated, every casualty politicised. This wasn’t coverage. It was choreography.

Scene one: The righteous strike

On May 6, India struck first. Or, as Indian media framed it, India defended first.

Operation Sindoor was announced with theatrical pomp. Twenty-four strikes in twenty-five minutes. Nine “terror hubs” destroyed. Zero civilian casualties. The villains — Jaish-e-Muhammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba, “terror factories” across Bahawalpur and Muzaffarabad in Pakistan – were said to be reduced to dust.

The headlines were triumphalist: “Surgical Strikes 2.0”, “The Roar of Indian Forces Reaches Rawalpindi”, “Justice Delivered”. Government spokespeople called it a “proportionate response” to the Pahalgam massacre that had left 26 Indian tourists dead. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh declared: “They attacked India’s forehead, we wounded their chest”. Cinematic? Absolutely. Deliberate? Even more so.

Indian media constructed a national identity of moral power: a state forced into action, responding not with rage but with restraint, armed not just with BrahMos missiles but with dharma – righteous duty and moral order. The enemy wasn’t Pakistan, the narrative insisted — it was terror. And who could object to that?

This is the genius of framing. Constructivist theory tells us that states act based on identities, not just interests. And identity is forged through language. In India’s case, the media crafted a story where military might was tethered to moral clarity. The strikes weren’t aggression — they were catharsis. They weren’t war — they were therapy.

But here’s the thing: therapy for whom?

Scene two: The sacred defence

Three days later, Pakistan struck back. Operation Bunyan Marsoos — Arabic for “iron wall” — was declared. The name alone tells you everything. This wasn’t just a retaliatory strike; it was a theological assertion, a national sermon. The enemy had dared to trespass. The response would be divine.

Pakistani missiles reportedly rained down on Indian military sites: brigade headquarters, an S-400 system, and military installations in Punjab and Jammu. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif proclaimed that Pakistan had “avenged the 1971 war”, in which it had capitulated and allowed Bangladesh to secede. That’s not battlefield strategy. That’s myth-making.

The media in Pakistan amplified this narrative with patriotic zeal. Indian strikes were framed as war crimes, mosques hit, civilians killed. Photographs of rubble and blood were paired with captions about martyrdom. The response, by contrast, was precise, moral, and inevitable.

Pakistan’s national identity, as constructed in this moment, was one of righteous victimhood: we are peaceful, but provoked; restrained, but resolute. We do not seek war, but we do not fear it either.

The symmetry is uncanny. Both states saw themselves as defenders, never aggressors. Both claimed moral superiority. Both insisted the enemy fired first. Both said they had no choice.

Constructing the enemy and the victim

The symmetry was also apparent in the constructed image of the enemy and the delcared victims.

India portrayed Pakistan as a terror factory: duplicitous, rogue, a nuclear-armed spoiler addicted to jihad. Pakistani identity was reduced to its worst stereotype, deceptive and dangerous. Peace, in this worldview, is impossible because the Other is irrational.

Pakistan, in turn, cast India as a fascist state: led by a majoritarian regime, obsessed with humiliation, eager to erase Muslims from history. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the aggressor. India was the occupier. Their strikes were framed not as counterterrorism but as religious war.

In each case, the enemy wasn’t just a threat. The enemy was an idea — and an idea cannot be reasoned with.

This is the danger of media-driven identity construction. Once the Other becomes a caricature, dialogue dies. Diplomacy becomes weakness. Compromise becomes betrayal. And war becomes not just possible, but desirable.

The image of the Other also determined who was considered a victim and who was not.

While missiles flew, people died. Civilians in Kashmir, on both sides, were killed. Border villages were shelled. Religious sites damaged. Innocent people displaced. But these stories, the human stories, were buried beneath the rubble of rhetoric.

In both countries, the media didn’t mourn equally. Victims were grieved if they were ours. Theirs? Collateral. Or fabricated. Or forgotten.

This selective mourning is a moral indictment. Because when we only care about our dead, we become numb to justice. And in that numbness, violence becomes easier the next time.

The battle for legitimacy

What was at stake during the India-Pakistan confrontation wasn’t just territory or tactical advantage. It was legitimacy. Both states needed to convince their own citizens, and the world, that they were on the right side of history.

Indian media leaned on the global “war on terror” frame. By targeting Pakistan-based militants, India positioned itself as a partner in global security. Sound familiar? It should. It’s the same playbook used by the United States in Iraq and Israel in Gaza. Language like “surgical”, “precision”, and “pre-emptive” doesn’t just describe, it absolves.

Meanwhile, Pakistan’s media leaned on the moral weight of sovereignty. India’s strikes were framed as an assault not just on land, but on izzat, honour. By invoking sacred spaces, by publicising civilian casualties, Pakistan constructed India not as a counterterrorist actor but as a bully and a blasphemer.

This discursive tug-of-war extended even to facts. When India claimed to have killed 80 militants, Pakistan called it fiction. When Pakistan claimed to have shot down Indian jets, India called it propaganda. Each accused the other of misinformation. Each media ecosystem became a hall of mirrors, reflecting only what it wanted to see.

Ceasefire, silence and a call to listen differently

The guns fell silent on May 13, thanks to a US-brokered ceasefire. Both governments claimed victory. Media outlets moved on. Cricket resumed. Hashtags faded.

But what lingers is the story each side now tells about itself: We were right. They were wrong. We showed strength. They backed down.

This is the story that will shape textbooks, elections, military budgets. It will inform the next standoff, the next skirmish, the next war.

And until the story changes, nothing will. And it can change.

Narratives constructed on competing truths, forged in newsrooms and battlefields, performed in rallies and funerals, are not eternal.

Just as they were constructed, they can be deconstructed. And that can happen only if we start listening not to the loudest voice, but to the one we’ve learned to ignore.

So the next time war drums beat, ask not just who fired first, but who spoke last. And ask what story that speech was trying to tell.

Because in South Asia, the most dangerous weapon isn’t nuclear.

It’s narrative.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – Javaid Iqbal opens a photo on his mobile phone. It shows a little girl sporting a pink woollen beanie, a grey trinket slung loosely around her neck – her face beaming in a wide smile.

Five-year-old Maryam, his daughter, who happily posed for the photo only last month. Today, she is no more.

Maryam was killed on the morning of May 7 when an explosive landed on their home in Sukha Katha, a cluster of some 200 homes in Poonch district of Indian-administered Kashmir, some 20km (12 miles) from the Line of Control (LoC), India’s de facto border with Pakistan in the disputed Himalayan region.

“Oh, Maryam,” Iqbal, 36, cries out, clutching the phone to his chest. “This is a loss I cannot live with.”

Maryam was among at least 21 civilians – 15 of them in Poonch – killed in cross-border shelling in Indian-administered Kashmir in early May as the South Asian nuclear powers and historical enemies engaged in their most intense military confrontation in decades. For four days, they exchanged missiles and drones, and stood on the precipice of their fifth war before they announced a ceasefire on May 10.

That truce has since held, even though tensions remain high and both nations have launched diplomatic outreach initiatives to try and convince the rest of the world about their narrative in a conflict that dates back to 1947, when the British left the subcontinent, cleaving it into India and Pakistan.

But for families of those who lost relatives in the cross-border firing, the tenuous peace along the LoC at the moment means little.

“My heart bleeds when I think of how you [Maryam] died in my arms,” wails Iqbal.

‘The earth rattled beneath us’

For decades, residents along the LoC have found themselves caught in the line of fire between India and Pakistan, who have fought three of their four previous wars over Kashmir. Both control parts of the region, with two tiny slivers also administered by China. But India claims all of Kashmir, while Pakistan also claims all of the region except the parts governed by China, its ally.

In 2003, India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire along the LoC that – despite frequent border skirmishes and killings of civilians on both sides – broadly held, and was renewed in 2021.

But on April 22, gunmen killed 25 tourists and a Kashmiri pony rider in Pahalgam, a scenic resort in Indian-administered Kashmir, starting the latest chapter in the India-Pakistan conflict over the region.

New Delhi accused Pakistan of backing the gunmen, a charge that Islamabad denied. Since the beginning of an armed rebellion against India’s rule in Indian-administered Kashmir in 1989, New Delhi has accused Islamabad of training and financially supporting the rebels. Islamabad says it only provides diplomatic and moral support to the separatist movement.

On May 7, the Indian military responded to the Pahalgam killings by launching missiles at multiple cities in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. India claimed it struck “terror camps” and killed about 100 “terrorists”. Pakistan said more than 50 people were killed – but most were civilians, with a military personnel also killed.

Pakistan responded with heavy cross-border firing. Iqbal says he was jolted awake at about 2am on May 7 by the sounds of artillery shells landing “one after the other, their thuds rattling the earth beneath us”.

“I made frantic calls to everyone, like police, officials in administration I knew, and on toll-free emergency numbers like 108, pleading with them to rescue me and my family,” he told Al Jazeera. “But no one came.”

He says he huddled his family – his wife, three children and three children of his brother who were with them at the time – in an outhouse abutting their main house, hoping that cinder blocks on top of the structure would make it more resilient to any Pakistani shells.

The explosions kept getting closer.

Shortly after sunrise, he says, a shell whizzed across the mountains, a trail of smoke streaming behind it, and landed with an explosion close to their shelter. Its splinters hurtled in every direction, blasting through the walls behind which Iqbal and his family had sought refuge.

As he squinted through the smoky haze, his eyes rested on Maryam, whose little body was perforated with hot metal shards as she lay listless amid the debris, which was soaked with her blood.

“I called a friend for help. He alerted the administration, who sent an ambulance, which tried to come near our house, but the continuous shelling forced it to return,” he said, adding that the ambulance attempted to come closer five times but could not.

By the time the shelling subsided and they could get to a hospital, Maryam was dead. Her sister, 7-year-old Iram Naaz, was also hit by a splinter in her forehead and is currently recovering in the family’s ancestral village in Qasba, close to the LoC.

A ghost town

The shelling continued in Sukha Katha for three days. Today, it looks like a ghost town, its ominous silence shattered only by the strong gales of wind sweeping through the open doors and windows of empty homes, with curtains fluttering and dust swirling around them.

Most residents who fled the shelling haven’t returned.

“There are about 200 homes here and they are empty because everyone has fled to safety,” said Muhammad Mukhar, a 35-year-old resident. He and a few others remained. “We are just keeping an eye out for thieves. These townspeople are unlikely to return soon because things are still uncertain.”

The villagers have reasons to remain fearful of more attacks, says Kashmiri political analyst Zafar Choudhary. He says the loss of civilian lives on the Indian side of the border in Poonch is due to the “peculiar” topography of the region, which confers a “unique advantage” to Pakistan.

“Most of the towns and villages on the Indian side are situated down in the valleys while Pakistani army posts remain high on the mountain tops, overlooking the civilian habitations here,” he says. “Even if India retaliates, the civilian loss to the Pakistani side would remain minimal. This makes border towns such as Poonch vulnerable.”

At Khanetar, a town of rundown structures of bricks and rebars overhung with life-size advertisements of soda drinks, an asphalt road zigzags through the forests and ravines and links the border areas of Poonch with the plains of Jammu, in the southern part of Indian-administered Kashmir.

In this village, a Pakistani shell explosion killed 13-year-old Vihan Kumar inside the family’s car when they were trying to escape the firing. The boy died on the spot, his skull ripped open.

“It was a loud sound, and at once, my son was in a pool of blood,” recalls Sanjeev Bhargav, Vihan’s father. “We immediately rushed to the district hospital in Poonch, where Vihan breathed his last.” Vihan was the only child of his parents.

‘Naked dance of death’

Meanwhile, at the intensive care unit of the Government Medical College Hospital in Jammu, the second largest city in Indian-administered Kashmir, about 230km (140 miles) southeast of Poonch, Arusha Khan is consoling her husband, Rameez Khan, a 46-year-old teacher, who is battling for his life after shrapnel punctured the left side of his liver.

They are mourning the loss of their twins – son Zain Ali and daughter Urba Fatima – who died in the shelling of their house on May 7. They had turned 12 in April.

The family was cowering inside their home in Poonch when the frightened twins called their uncle, Arusha’s brother Aadil Pathan, who lived in Surankote, in the same district, about 40km (25 miles) away, pleading with him to save them.

“The children were scared to their wits’ end,” Arusha’s sister Maria Pathan tells Al Jazeera over the telephone. “Aadil left home in his car at 5:30am and reached their place an hour later.”

Maria says Aadil called out from outside the house and swung open the door of his car. But as soon as the trapped family came out and began to dash in the direction of the car, a shell struck. Urba died on the spot. Rameez also suffered “tremendous blood loss” from his injuries, Maria said.

“And suddenly, Arusha couldn’t see Zain around,” says Maria. “He was injured and had staggered into a neighbour’s home about 100 metres (300ft) away. When Arusha rushed to see him, he was just a body on the floor.” He, too, had died.

“We don’t wish even for our enemies what has happened to my sister and her family,” Maria says amid sobs.

Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy director of Human Rights Watch Asia, says attacks on children during such conflicts between two nations could constitute war crimes.

“Indiscriminately striking civilian areas is a violation of international humanitarian law,” she says, speaking to Al Jazeera. “If such attacks are committed willfully, they would amount to war crimes.”

Poonch-based politician Shamim Ganai says the destruction wreaked by the Pakistani shelling was a “naked dance of death”.

“We weren’t prepared for what we eventually came to experience. There were no preparations to evacuate people. People were simply running, many even barefoot, holding on to chickens and other belongings in their arms,” he recalls.

“I have lived through previous border clashes,” he says. “But this was nothing like I have ever seen.”

Srinagar, Indian-administered Kashmir – In a quiet laser clinic in Indian-administered Kashmir’s biggest city, Srinagar, Sameer Wani sits with his arm stretched out, his eyes following the fading ink on his skin.

The word “Azadi” (freedom in Urdu), once a bold symbol of rebellion against India’s rule, slowly disappears under the sting of the laser. What was once a mark of defiance has become a burden he no longer wants to carry.

As Sameer, 28, watches the ink vanish, his mind drifts to a day he will never forget. He was riding his motorbike with a friend when Indian security forces stopped them at a checkpoint.

During the frisking, one of the officers pointed to the tattoo on his arm and asked, “What is this?”

Sameer’s heart raced. “I was lucky he couldn’t read Urdu,” he tells Al Jazeera, his voice tinged with the memory. “It was a close call. I knew right then that this tattoo could get me into serious trouble.”

When he was younger, he said, the tattoo was a “sign of strength, of standing up for something”.

“But now I see it was a mistake. It doesn’t represent who I am any more. It’s not worth carrying the risk, and it’s not worth holding on to something that could hurt my future.”

Sameer is one of many young Kashmiris choosing to erase tattoos that once reflected their political beliefs, emotional struggles or identity. Once worn with pride, the tattoos are now being removed in growing numbers across the region – quietly and without fanfare.

While a trend to remove tattoos was already under way, the urgency has deepened since India and Pakistan – who have fought three wars over Kashmir since emerging as independent nations in 1947 – came to the brink of yet another war following the killing of 26 people in the scenic resort town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir last month.

New Delhi accuses Islamabad of backing an armed rebellion that erupted on the Indian side in 1989. Pakistan rejects the allegation, saying it only provides moral diplomatic support to Kashmir’s separatist movement.

Two weeks after Pahalgam, India, on May 7, launched predawn drone and missile attacks on what it called “terror camps” inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir – the most extensive cross-border missile strikes since their war in 1971. For the next three days, the world held its breath as the South Asian nuclear powers exchanged fire until United States President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire between them on May 10.

However, peace remains fragile in Indian-administered Kashmir, where a crackdown by Indian forces has left the region gripped by fear. Homes of suspected rebels have been destroyed, others have been raided, and more than 1,500 people have been arrested since the Pahalgam attack, many under preventive detention laws.

‘We feel it on our skin’

In such a tense atmosphere, many Kashmiri youth say they feel exposed – and more vulnerable to scrutiny over even the most personal forms of expression.

“Every time something happens between India and Pakistan, we feel it on our skin – literally,” Rayees Wani, 26, a resident of Shopian district, tells Al Jazeera.

“I have a tattoo of Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani’s name on my arm, and after the Pahalgam attack, I started getting strange looks at checkpoints,” he said, referring to the separatist leader who passed away at the age of 91 in 2021. The Hurriyat is an alliance of pro-freedom groups in Indian-administered Kashmir.

“Even my friends ask me uncomfortable questions. The media, police, and even the neighbours start looking at you differently,” Rayees added.

“I just wish people understood that a tattoo doesn’t define someone’s loyalty or character. We are just trying to live, not explain ourselves every day. I want to erase this as soon as possible.”

Arsalan, 19, from Pulwama recently booked a tattoo removal session. He did not share his last name over fears of reprisal from the authorities.

“People with visible tattoos – especially those hinting at past political affiliations – are suddenly worried they could be profiled, questioned – or worse,” he said.

To be sure, tattoo culture itself isn’t fading in Kashmir. Tattoo studios are still busy, especially with clients aged between 22 and 40, many of whom wait for hours to get inked. But the trend has shifted; instead of political or religious tattoos, people now prefer minimalistic designs, nature-inspired patterns, names or meaningful quotes in stylish fonts.

Some Kashmiris trying to get rid of tattoos say that’s part of their personal evolution and growth.

“For me, it was about being brave,” Irfan Yaqoob from Baramulla district told Al Jazeera. Now 36, Yaqoob got a slain rebel’s name tattooed on his left arm when he was a teenager.

“Back then, it felt like a symbol of courage. But now, when I look at it, I realise how much I have changed. Life has moved on, and so have I. I have a family, a job, and different priorities. I don’t want my past to define me or create trouble in the present. That’s why I decided to get it removed. It’s not about shame. It’s about growth,” he said.

Many reasons to remove tattoos

It isn’t just the security forces that are driving this move among many Kashmiris to get rid of tattoos.

For some, tattoos became painful reminders of a turbulent past. For others, they turned into obstacles, especially when they tried to move ahead professionally or wanted to align the inscription on their bodies with their personal beliefs.

Anas Mir, who also lives in Srinagar, had a tattoo of a sword with “Azadi” written over it. He got it removed a few weeks ago.

“People don’t clearly say why they are removing tattoos. I removed mine only because of pressure from my family,” the 25-year-old said.

“It’s my choice what kind of tattoo I want. No one should judge me for it. If someone had an AK-47 or a political tattoo, that was their choice. The authorities or government shouldn’t interfere. And yes, tattoo trends also change with time,” he added, referring to the Russian-made Avtomat Kalashnikova assault rifles, arguably the most popular firearm in the world.

One of the key reasons behind people removing tattoos is religion. In a Muslim-majority region, tattoos, especially those carrying religious or political messages, could often conflict with the faith’s teachings.

Faheem, 24, had a Quranic verse tattooed on his back when he was 17.

“At that time, I thought it was an act of faith,” he told Al Jazeera, without revealing his last name over security fears. “But later, I realised that tattoos – especially with holy verses – are not encouraged [in Islam]. It started to bother me deeply. I felt guilty every time I offered namaz [prayers] or went to the mosque. That regret stayed with me. Getting it removed was my way of making peace with myself and with my faith.”

Many others said they shared the feeling. Some visit religious scholars to ask whether having tattoos affects their prayers or faith. While most are advised not to dwell on past actions, they are encouraged to take steps that bring them closer to their beliefs.

“It’s not about blaming anyone,” said Ali Mohammad, a religious scholar in Srinagar. “It’s about growth and understanding. When someone realises that something they did in the past doesn’t align with their beliefs any more, and they take steps to correct it, that’s a sign of maturity, not shame.”

Another key factor driving tattoo removals is job security. In Kashmir, government jobs are seen as stable and prestigious. But having a tattoo, especially one with political references, can create problems during recruitment or background checks.

Talib, who disclosed his first name only, had a tattoo of a Quranic verse shaped like an AK-47 rifle on his forearm. When he applied for a government position, a family friend in law enforcement hinted it might be an issue.

“He didn’t say it directly, but I could tell he was worried,” said the 25-year-old. “Since then, I have been avoiding half-sleeve shirts. I got many rejections and no one ever gave a clear reason, but deep down, I knew the tattoo was a problem. It felt like a wall between me and my future.”

As the demand for tattoo removal rises, clinics in Srinagar and other parts of Indian-administered Kashmir are seeing a steady increase in clients. Laser sessions, once rare, are now booked weeks in advance.

Mubashir Bashir, a well-known tattoo artist in Srinagar who also runs a tattoo removal service, said: “After a popular singer’s death in 2022, the trend of AK-47 tattoos exploded,” Bashir said. Punjabi singer Sidhu Moose Wala, whose music often glorified guns, was killed in May 2022. Police blamed his death on an inter-gang rivalry.

“But now, especially after the Pahalgam attack, we are seeing more people coming in to erase those tattoos. The fear is real,” Mubashir said.

He estimated that tens of thousands of tattoos have been removed in the region over the past seven years, since 2019, when India abrogated Kashmir’s semi-autonomous status and launched a major crackdown, arresting thousands of civilians. “Some say the tattoo no longer represents them. Others mention problems at work or while travelling,” Mubashir said.

Laser tattoo removal isn’t easy. It requires multiple sessions, costs thousands of rupees and can be painful. Even after successful removal, faint scars or marks often remain. But for many Kashmiris, the pain is worth it.

Sameer, whose “Azadi” tattoo is almost gone, remembers the emotional weight of the process. “I didn’t cry when I got the tattoo,” he says. “But I cried when I started removing it. It felt like I was letting go of a part of myself.”

Still, Sameer believes it was the right choice. “It’s not about shame,” he says. “I respect who I was. But I want to grow. I want to live without looking over my shoulder.”

As he finishes another laser session, a faint scar is all that is left of the word that is Kashmir’s war-cry for freedom.

“I will never forget what that tattoo meant to me when I was 18,” Sameer says as he rolls down his sleeve. “But now, I want to be someone new. I want a life where I don’t carry old shadows.”

A professor from an elite, private liberal-arts university in India has been arrested for a social media post about news briefings on the military operation against Pakistan more than a week after the two nuclear-armed neighbours agreed to a ceasefire, according to local media reports.

Ali Khan Mahmudabad, an associate professor with the Department of Political Science at Ashoka University, was arrested on Sunday under sections of the criminal code pertaining to acts prejudicial to maintaining communal harmony, incitement of armed rebellion or subversive activities, and insults of religious beliefs.

A police official told the Indian Express newspaper that Mahmudabad, 42, was arrested in the capital, New Delhi, 60km (37 miles) south of the university, located in Sonepat in Haryana state.

A report by the online publication Scroll.in on Sunday quoted Mahmudabad’s lawyer as saying the case against him was filed on Saturday based on a complaint by Yogesh Jatheri, general secretary of the youth wing of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Haryana.

The arrest was made days after the Haryana State Commission for Women summoned Mahmudabad for his comments on the daily briefings on India’s military operation in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Colonel Sofiya Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh from the Indian armed forces held media briefings on Operation Sindoor, launched on May 6.

In a Facebook post on May 8, Mahmudabad had said: “I am very happy to see so many right wing commentators applauding Colonel Sophia Qureishi but perhaps they could also equally loudly demand that the victims of mob lynchings, arbitrary bulldozing and others who are victims of the BJP’s hate mongering be protected as Indian citizens.

“The optics of two women soldiers presenting their findings is importantly but optics must translate to reality on the ground otherwise it’s just hypocrisy.”

The post referred to Qureishi, a Muslim officer in the Indian army, and attacks against Muslims, including lynchings and destruction of their houses without due process.

According to local media reports, the Haryana Women’s Commission on Monday said the professor’s statement “disparaged women officers in the Indian Armed Forces and promoted communal disharmony” and summoned him.

Mahmudabad has defended his comments and said on X that they had been misunderstood.

“If anything, my entire comments were about safeguarding the lives of both citizens and soldiers. Furthermore, there is nothing remotely misogynistic about my comments that could be construed as anti-women,” he said.

In February last year, the human rights group Amnesty International urged the government to stop “unjust targeted demolition of Muslim properties”.

“The unlawful demolition of Muslim properties by the Indian authorities, peddled as ‘bulldozer justice’ by political leaders and media, is cruel and appalling. Such displacement and dispossession is deeply unjust, unlawful and discriminatory. They are destroying families – and must stop immediately,” said Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general.

“The authorities have repeatedly undermined the rule of law, destroying homes, businesses or places of worship, through targeted campaigns of hate, harassment, violence and the weaponization of JCB bulldozers. These human rights abuses must be urgently addressed,” she said in a statement.

India’s Supreme Court has ordered a halt to so-called bulldozer justice, but that has not stopped authorities from disregarding due process.

The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi of the BJP has also been accused of allowing far-right Hindu vigilante groups to act with impunity. They have lynched Muslims and tried to police interfaith relations. Modi has spoken against cow vigilante killings, but his government has done little to stop the activities of vigilante groups.

My statement re the summons that I received from the Haryana State Women’s Commission.

The posts that were misunderstood and objected to can be accessed on my Facebook page. pic.twitter.com/U4rZrAXhFx

— Ali Khan Mahmudabad (@Mahmudabad) May 14, 2025

Professors and activists across the country have shown their support for Mahmudabad.

An open letter with about 1,200 signatories released on Friday said: “It is clear that Prof Khan praised the strategic restraint of the armed forces, analysed how any distinction between the terrorists or non-state actors and the Pakistani military has now collapsed, and said that the optics of the women officers chosen for media debriefs was ‘important’ as proof that the secular vision of the founders of our Republic is still alive.”

The truce between India and Pakistan, announced on May 10, halted several days of missile and drone attacks across their shared border. Pakistan said at least 31 people were killed in India’s strikes while India said at least 15 people were killed in Pakistan’s counterattacks.

After deadly attacks between Pakistan and India, a ceasefire was suddenly declared. Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar rejects claims that Washington imposed the truce, insisting Pakistan acted independently. He addresses India’s accusations and Pakistan’s military influence. As two rivals teetered on the edge of war, Ishaq Dar explains Pakistan’s strategy, its position on Kashmir, and whether this ceasefire might not last.