On May 7, 2026, the first anniversary of Operation Sindoor, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed the “remarkable valor and patriotism of the brave soldiers of the country” and also the “self-reliance in the defense sector.” Country-wide celebrations were organized by the government and the military to mark the “victory” achieved last year against the terrorists who responsible for an attack that killed 26 people in Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22, 2025.
Operation Sindoor, which targeted terrorist infrastructure deep inside Pakistan and triggered a brief war between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, has remained a critical part of the Indian government’s claims that it has brought normalcy to Kashmir. Nevertheless, while violence has certainly dipped, Kashmir continues to witness a great churning: of local hopes and expectations, stifled local politics, and New Delhi’s security-centric official policies.
At least 92 fatalities were reported in Jammu & Kashmir in 2025, 42 of them after the Pahalgam attack. According to the database of the South Asia Terrorism Portal, 46 terrorists were killed, of whom 32 died between May and December that year. Whether these included the actual perpetrators of the Pahalgam attack remains a matter of debate. Meantime, the first six months of 2026 have seen 12 deaths, 10 of them listed as terrorists, most of whom were killed during attempts to infiltrate into India from Pakistan. The month of May, which traditionally sees increased violence in the valley after the snow melts in the mountains enabling movement across the border, passed without a single terror attack.
