Did Pakistan army chief's provocative speech trigger deadly Pahalgam terror attack?

Pakistan army chief General Asim Munir

The heinous terror attack in Pahalgam on Tuesday has brought intense scrutiny to Pakistan army chief General Asim Munir's provocative speech at a recent event wherein he termed Kashmir as the "jugular vein" of Pakistan.

In a charged rhetoric on Kashmir, two-nation theory and the civilizational divide between Hindus and Muslims, Gen Munir left the people of Pakistan with a hard-hitting message which was widely called out in India for being incendiary.

Now, the speech is being seen as one of the triggers for the dastardly terror attack in Pahalgam which has left 26 dead.

Live coverage: Pahalgam terror attack

According to a report in The Times of India, sources said that Munir's remarks could have been a possible dog-whistle that led to the attack, which also coincided with US Vice President JD Vance's visit.

In his address to a gathering of Pakistanis based abroad, Asim Munir said that his country's stance on Kashmir is absolutely clear: that it's the "jugular vein of Pakistan." He added that Pakistan will not forget this and expressed solidarity with the "struggle" of the region.

The Pakistani army chief also spoke about the two-nation theory as he stressed that India and Pakistan are two different nations and Pakistanis are different from Hindus in terms of their culture, ideologies and more. “Our forefathers thought we are different from Hindus in every possible aspect of life. Our religions are different, our customs are different, our traditions are different, our thoughts are different, our ambitions are different. That was the foundation of the two-nation theory that was laid there. We are two nations, we are not one nation,” he said.

Sources, quoting intelligence officers, said that Munir's speech which spoke about the differences between Hindus and Muslims, could have inspired The Resistance Front (TRF) to carry out the attack - one of the deadliest in the Valley in recent years.

Indian intelligence viewed the surge in anti-Hindu rhetoric as a calculated move — timed with protests over changes to the Waqf Act — to galvanize Pakistan-based terrorists into regrouping.

TRF, an offshoot of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, had claimed responsibility for the attack.

The group came into existence in 2019 as a proxy outfit of LeT, founded by 26/11 mastermind Hafeez Saeed. It recruits youth through online medium for terrorist activities and has been also involved in carrying out propaganda on terror activities, recruitment of terrorists, infiltration of terrorists and smuggling of weapons and narcotics from Pakistan into J&K

According to a report in The Indian Express, officials said that TRF was a rebranding of LeT to mask its Pakistani links since names like Lashkar and Jaish had religious overtones, which the neighbouring country wanted to avoid.