THE Indian prime minister recently announced a temporary pause in the Sindoor operation against Pakistan. Given the traditional hostility between the two countries, the use of this pause byIndia toharmPakistan,by supportingPakistanbased militant groups, cannot be ruled out. There is then an urgent need to conduct a holistic threat assessment regarding the proxies India can use and the type of assistance it can give them. On the basis of this, a national response should be developed to pre-empt anyescalation of India-supported terrorism in Pakistan.

Presently, the militant groups targeting Pakistan fall into two broad categories subnationalists and religiously inspired militants.

The second category comprises all active militant groups claiming to perpetrate terrorism inside Pakistan in the name of religion. While there are local grievances exploited by both categories to support their respective narratives, there is reason to believe that they also thrive on crucial support from countries hostile to Pakistan, specifically India.

Historically, Baloch sub-nationalists, particularly the two most active terrorist groups, the Balochistan Liberation Army and the Balochistan Liberation Front, are known to have been consistently supported by India for years. This nexus was evident in the post-Sindoor public stance of both groups. BL A spokesperson Jeeyand Baloch issued a statement on social media on May 11, 2025, `pledging support to India in any military action against Pakistan`. Similarly, in a video, BLF head Dr Allah Nazar Baloch appealed to India, Afghanistan and Iran for active support in BLF`s hostilities against Pakistan. However, more specific details of India`s role in sponsoring these two terrorist groups came to light with the arrest of Kulbhushan Jadhav in 2017. An undercover RAW officer, Jadhav was operating from Chabahar in Iran. He divulged detailed information about three areas in which India was assisting Baloch militant groups: provision of massive funds, supply of weapons and facilitation of movement of men and material, from and to Balochistan. For funds supply, the main modus operandi, according to Jadhav, was transferring money from Delhi and Mumbai via Dubai to Pakistan, mostly through the informal hawala and hundi system. Also, the Indian consulate in Zahedan, Iran, was used to smuggle not only cash but also men and material.

Not only sub-nationalists but some religiouslyinspired terrorist groups, particularly the most active one, the Afghanistan-based TTP, too, have reportedly had support from the Afghan and Indian intelligence agencies. The TTP`s statement on May 8 released on its Telegram channel lends credence to this. While it expressed `grief` on the death of civilians in the Indian attacks on May 7 in Bahawalpur and other areas, during Operation Sindoor, it condemned Pakistan`s military, alleging it had `provided intelligence about these targets to the Indians for this attack`.

Earlier, specific evidence of support by the Indian intelligence to the TTP had been disclosed by senior TTP commander Latif Mehsud, who was arrested by the US Army in Afghanistan and subsequently handed over to Pakistan in 2014. He admitted that the Indians were providing funds, weapons and training to the TTP through Indian consulates in Afghan cities. With this history, TTP,or at least some of its leaders, are likely to support any Indian plan to increase terrorist activities inside Pakistan. This is likely to be encouraged by Afghan Taliban supremo Hibatullah`s recent order to the Afghanistan-based TTP to refrain from using Afghan soil or Afghan nationals to carry out terrorist acts against Pakistan. This restriction by Afghanistan may well strengthen pro-India TTP elements and cause them to look towards India for greater support.

Pakistan has to respond to the growing terrorist threat from India-sponsored militant proxies through a three-dimensional approach.

As stated earlier, the pivot of India`s effort to stoke terrorism in Pakistan through its proxies is the provision of massive funds to the latter. These funds are transferred through hawala, cash couriers, crypto currencies and the exploitation of other loopholes in our financial system. Dismantling this network of illicit financial flows for terroristfinancing should form the crux of any counterterrorism response by Pakistan. While Pakistan has taken significant steps to improve its capability to deal with terrorist financing, the terrorism surge in recent years indicates that there remain major loopholes which India can exploit to be plugged. Hence the need to evaluate the efficacy of existing measures to check terrorist financing and revamp the entire system. The government recently set up the National AML/CFT Authority to coordinate the national effort to combat terrorist financing and money laundering. This authority must immediately bring out a national plan to deal with terrorist financing, particularly by India in view of the increasing bilateral tensions.

The second area, which deserves immediate attention, is the use of our porous borders with Afghanistan and Iran by terrorists and their foreign supporters, including India, to smuggle cash, weapons,menandmaterialintoPakistan.Nothing stresses the importance of monitoring borders more than the recent smuggling of hundreds of drones by Ukraine into Russia, through their proxies. Hidden in trucks, they got past Russian border control and were launched to cause massive damage to the Russian air force. Therefore, it is imperative to streamline our border control systems to pre-empt any move by India or other foreign supporters of terrorists to exploit the gaps in our border security through proxies.

The third vulnerability, which can be exploited by foreign sponsors of terrorist groups active in Pakistan, such as India, is the existence of local fault lines in society, particularly in the two provinces most targeted by terrorist groups Balochistan and KP. Redressing domestic grievances should be an essential component of our strategy not only to erode public support for terrorists but also to deny propaganda material to hostile countries, which is used to malign Pakistan internationally.

One hopes for the sake of regional peace that the declared pause in Operation Sindoor transforms into a meaningful ceasefire and does not lead to any covert activity. Nevertheless, Pakistan should not lower its guard and be prepared to defend itself against an Indian-sponsored upswing in terrorism. Complacency would be disastrous for our national security. • The wnter, a former police officer, was Nacta`s first national coordinator.