Srinagar: A year after the Pahalgam terrorist attack, the Bhartiya Janta Party-led Union government is yet to specify the “lapses” that allowed a group of gunmen to stage one of the deadliest attacks on civilians in Jammu and Kashmir, remedial measures taken, and whether accountability has been fixed.Officials of the Union home ministry including from the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and others had briefed the all-party meeting in the national capital on April 24, 2025. They said that “lapses” had occurred which led to the carnage at Pahalgam’s Baisaran meadow two days earlier.At least 25 tourists were killed at the picturesque meadow when three terrorists emerged from the woods, singled out a group of Hindu men and killed them mercilessly, one by one, in front of their families. A Kashmiri Muslim pony attender was also killed while reportedly trying to save a Hindu woman.‘Nobody is saying that the government is culpable, but…’Ahead of the tragic incident, intelligence agencies had warned of a terror attack on tourists in Jammu and Kashmir but it was not specified where such an attack was going to take place.Radha Kumar, former Kashmir interlocutor and author of Paradise at War: A Political History of Kashmir, alleged that there was a failure on part of the security establishment to act effectively on intelligence to assess where the danger spots could be.“Nobody is saying that the government is culpable for the failure but what people are entitled to ask is how Baisaran was missed altogether,” she said.A fortnight before the attack, Union home minister Amit Shah on April 8 chaired a meeting of the Unified Command (UC), the highest decision making body on security matters in J&K, in Srinagar, along with Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and top security officers.It was not known whether the intelligence on terror attack on tourists was discussed during the meeting.Some defence and security experts along with the opposition parties blamed the UC, which is headed by the lieutenant governor, for a critical intelligence failure.File photo. A security official keeps a vigil on the banks of Dal Lake, in the wake of the Pahalgam terrorist attack, in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, Saturday, April 26, 2025. Photo: PTI.‘Assessment and consultation with police and local intelligence apparatus’According to the National Investigations Agency which probed the case, the three attackers of Baisaran who were gunned down in an encounter in ‘Operation Mahadev’ last year were in Pahalgam for at least two days before the carnage unfolded.Faisal Jutt alias Suleman, one of the three perpetrators who is believed to have infiltrated into J&K in 2023, was also involved in the deadly attack near the strategic Z-Morh tunnel in which seven persons were killed on October 20, 2024.Referring to the possible failure of the security grid in foiling the Pahalgam attack despite intelligence, Kumar blamed the “attitude” of the BJP-led Union government towards the people of Kashmir.“How much assessment and consultation was done with police and local intelligence apparatus is a more serious issue. It would appear there was very little, barring some exchanges at the top level. The attitude of the home minister and the ruling party that no Kashmiri can be trusted has created multiple security gaps through which Baisaran passed unnoticed.”Interestingly, the home ministry officials told the all-party meeting on April 24 last year that police permission “was not sought” for opening Baisaran, even though such permission has not been asked for in the past.“That is ridiculous,” Kumar said, “It shows how ignorant the government was and it seems to be a security lapse”.If the police permission was necessary, as the government has argued, there has been no explanation on why it was not obtained or whether any action has been taken against the officials who sidestepped the process.The south Kashmir health resort is managed by the Pahalgam Development Authority which has J&K’s lieutenant governor as its chairman.File photo. An anguished Kashmiri student disembarking from a bus after fleeing from Punjab where he was targeted by miscreants following the Pahalgam terror attack. Photo: Ubaid Mukhtar.Left unprotectedBesides, the attack took place in a heavily militarised region which hosts the annual Amarnath Yatra.An army camp is located near Lidroo, some 10 kilometres by road from Baisaran while an installation of the Central Reserve Paramilitary Forces who were the first responders to the attack is situated some five kilometres from the meadow.However, despite being popular among tourists, Baisaran was left completely unprotected while there was no deployment of security personnel along the dirt track to the spot, leaving the tourists vulnerable.There are reports that one of the two CRPF companies assigned to Baisaran was redeployed elsewhere before the attack.Days after the attack, the J&K police released sketches of the perpetrators involved in the tragic attack. However, the sketches were later confirmed by the NIA to be incorrect.“I don’t think we even found out who the actual shooters were,” said Aditya Sinha, senior journalist and co-author of The Spy Chronicles: RAW, ISI and the Illusion of Peace, among other books.“The BJP has always accused Congress and others of lacking accountability for lapses but till date no one among the officials has been found culpable”.A year after the Pahalgam tragedy, there are no answers to many questions while no concrete action has been taken against the officials in the civil and security establishment who could have stopped the carnage by acting with diligence and promptness.After Article 370The Pahalgam attack prompted the opposition parties to question the Union government’s claims that peace returned to Jammu and Kashmir after Article 370 was read down.After the conclusion of the all-party meeting which was chaired by Union defence minister Rajnath Singh and attended by Shah last year, Union parliamentary affairs minister Kiren Rijiju told reporters: “For the last few years, businesses were running well, tourists were coming; this incident has spoiled that environment and everyone raised their concerns about this. Our officials, including from the IB and home ministry, also gave a briefing about how this incident took place and where lapses occurred.”However, Kumar said that it was rare in a country like India for security lapses to be properly investigated and accountability fixed. Senior Congress leader and then Union home minister Shivraj Patil was the last person to take responsibility – he resigned in the aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai attacks.“There is generally a ‘let it slip till people forget’ attitude. If the lapses are investigated internally, reforms become necessary. Whether they have been undertaken is not clear. What we see instead is a fallback on the old tactic of clampdown,” she said.Sinha said that J&K LG as the formal head of the UC should have been replaced “at the very least”. “But he remains in the chair because he is the home minister’s eyes and ears in the valley. It is a sordid state of affairs”.Kumar alleged that the Union government has alienated people of Kashmir by labelling them as terrorists. Some houses of suspected militants were destroyed while hundreds of youngsters were detained in the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack.“Intelligence works on good relations with people. We may pick up suspicious chatter digitally but what is happening on the ground can only be gathered through firm relations with local people.”Kumar said that there was evidence that violence had come down in the valley when a peace process and dialogue were ongoing, “But our country’s rulers seem to think that what is called a hard security approach but is actually authoritarianism will work. It may for the short term but at the same time it will stoke resentment which will find an outlet, maybe not immediately but later”.