EDITORIAL: India’s latest attempt to establish a Pakistani hand behind terrorism in occupied Kashmir has run into a rather inconvenient problem: the Pakistani it reportedly identified as the terrorist killed in its September 29 operation is alive. Indian authorities identified the dead man as Mohammad Asif, alias Hashim Musa, allegedly a Lashkar-e-Taiba commander and former member of Pakistan’s elite Special Services Group. Pakistan responded by producing retired SSG Havaldar Muhammad Asif before journalists. For an accusation built around the identity and military background of a supposedly dead terrorist, seeing that man sitting very much alive at a press conference is a devastating rebuttal.
Pakistan has long accused India of reaching for the same playbook whenever violence in Kashmir or elsewhere creates an opportunity to implicate Islamabad. New Delhi routinely rejects such charges, and Pakistan’s description of particular incidents as false-flag operations remains an allegation unless supported by evidence. This episode, however, raises questions that India must answer. Who exactly was killed? How was he identified? How did the identity of a retired Pakistani soldier, complete with details of his military service, become attached to the dead man? Producing Asif alive does not by itself establish everything Pakistan alleges about the operation, but it demolishes a central element of the version circulated after it.
That matters particularly because the consequences of such accusations can extend far beyond propaganda. India and Pakistan came dangerously close to a much wider conflict after the Pahalgam attack last year. In a relationship between two nuclear-armed states, claims connecting terrorist attacks to the Pakistani military cannot be thrown into the information space casually and corrected later, if at all. Evidence must precede accusation, especially when that accusation can become the justification for military action.
There is also a larger reason why Pakistan’s charges concerning Indian covert activity deserve more serious international attention today than they once received. Investigations far removed from the subcontinent have exposed deeply troubling activity allegedly connected to Indian state personnel. In the United States, Indian national Nikhil Gupta pleaded guilty earlier this year to participating in a plot to assassinate a US citizen and Sikh separatist activist in New York. US prosecutors say Gupta acted at the direction of Vikash Yadav, who was an Indian government employee and whom they have charged with directing the murder plot. Yadav has not been arrested and the allegations against him remain to be adjudicated.
Canada has separately accused agents of the Indian government of involvement in violent criminal activity on Canadian soil, against the backdrop of its investigation into the 2023 killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar. India has rejected the Canadian allegations. Yet when serious accusations of extraterritorial operations emerge from countries with no conceivable interest in advancing Pakistan’s narrative, New Delhi faces a growing credibility problem. What Islamabad has described for years as India’s willingness to pursue security objectives covertly beyond its borders can no longer be dismissed simply because Pakistan is making the charge.
Pakistan, for its part, handled the latest episode effectively. Instead of merely trading accusations, it produced the man India had reportedly identified and allowed the contradiction to speak for itself. That is precisely how serious propaganda should be challenged: with evidence capable of being examined rather than another louder claim.
India can still establish who was killed in Kashmir and present whatever evidence it possesses regarding that individual’s identity and affiliations. Until then, the questions raised by this episode remain substantial. New Delhi has spent years pointing towards Pakistan whenever terrorism enters the conversation. Increasingly, however, scrutiny is travelling in the opposite direction.
And this time, the dead man’s problem is that he turned up alive.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2026