Uri to Pahalgam: Tracing the timeline of acts of terror against India

Two weeks after terrorists gunned down 26 tourists in the picturesque Baisaran valley near Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, India hit back with its most expansive military response. In multiple overnight strikes, Indian military used precision technology to pound nine terror sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir.

India was responding to the most grievous civilian casualty since the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. But the Pahalgam terror attacks weren’t the first time that terrorists had spilled Indian blood in recent history.

In fact, repeated cross-border terrorist activity meant that India had limited non-military options that could have real-world impact on Pakistan as New Delhi’s trade and other ties with Islamabad were plumbing new lows.  The one big change in the Pahalgam attack was the loss of lives of “innocent civilians” as Rajnath Singh put it, compared to the Pulwama attacks of 2019 or 2016’s Uri attacks, which were on the security personnel fighting terrorists.