On April 22, 2025, blood once again stained the picturesque beauty of Jammu & Kashmir. In Pahalgam, a town known for its serenity and tourism, 26 lives — mostly innocent tourists — were snuffed out in a meticulously planned terror attack. The Resistance Front (TRF), a proxy for Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), claimed responsibility. But what’s far more disturbing is the revelation that Sheikh Sajjad Gul, a 50-year-old Kashmiri who was once in our custody, is the mastermind behind this horrific act.
The question we must now ask, not out of political convenience but national responsibility, is: where did Indian intelligence fail?
A Known Devil
Sajjad Gul is no stranger to Indian agencies. He was arrested in 2002 by the Delhi Police Special Cell with 5 kg of RDX at Nizamuddin Railway Station. His mission? Serial blasts in India’s capital. He was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2003. He walked out of jail in 2017.
Here’s the first failure: How did such a dangerous man, with a proven track record of terrorism, walk out of prison and disappear across the border under the radar of Indian intelligence? Were his movements monitored post-release? Was there a lapse in ensuring that someone so deeply embedded in Pakistan-backed terror networks was placed under perpetual surveillance?
We must remember that by 2017, India had already endured the 2008 Mumbai attacks, and the urgency to monitor released terrorists should have been paramount. And yet, Gul was allowed to vanish.
An Asset to Pakistan, A Threat to India
Post his release, Gul made his way to Pakistan. It wasn’t just a strategic move, it was a carefully planned pivot. The Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) had a role ready for him — the Kashmiri face of LeT’s proxy outfit, The Resistance Front. The creation of TRF in 2019 wasn’t random. It was Pakistan’s answer to mounting international pressure post-Pulwama. It was an attempt to create a narrative: that terrorism in Kashmir was local, not Pakistan-sponsored.
Second failure: Did our intelligence agencies not detect Gul’s appointment as the chief of TRF? Did our assets across the border not warn us that this man was back in the terror fold — this time with a more sinister disguise?
Gul, educated in Srinagar and Bangalore, had all the ingredients to be projected as a “homegrown rebel” — a narrative Pakistan wanted and continues to sell to the world. The problem? India bought into it too, instead of exposing it for the charade it was.
The Surgical Strike Era and Missed Targets
After the 2016 Uri attacks, India retaliated with surgical strikes. Post-Pulwama in 2019, we saw the Balakot airstrikes. These were clear indicators that India would no longer tolerate terror safe havens in Pakistan. Yet, Gul remained untouched, sitting comfortably in Rawalpindi, planning ambushes, grenade attacks, and targeted killings in Kashmir between 2020 and 2024.
Gul’s fingerprints are now reportedly linked to multiple attacks — Bijbehra ambush, Gagangir strike, Z-Morh Tunnel ambush, and now the Pahalgam massacre.
This raises the third critical question: Why was Sheikh Sajjad Gul never made a high-priority target for neutralization? If Israel can eliminate its enemies sitting in Dubai or Damascus, why has India not moved beyond policy posturing? Our intelligence apparatus must answer why actionable intelligence on Gul never translated into counterterror operations.
A Family of Radicals
The rot runs deeper. Gul’s brother, an ex-doctor from Shri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital, migrated to Saudi Arabia and later to Pakistan. Today, he’s reportedly involved in terror funding and building Gulf networks with fugitives.
This isn’t just about one terrorist. This is about entire families entrenched in jihadi ideology, using India’s educational system, healthcare institutions, and legal rights — only to turn around and wage war against the state.
Did our agencies track Gul’s family history? His brother was a known radical. This wasn’t a man who emerged overnight. There were red flags for years — and yet, no preventive strategy seems to have been deployed to break the infrastructure of influence surrounding him.
The Diagnostic Lab of Death
Before fleeing to Pakistan, Gul operated a diagnostic lab in Kashmir — a legitimate front used to facilitate logistical support for terror outfits. He wore the face of a medical entrepreneur by day, and supported militants by night.
This highlights a massive counterterrorism loophole — the inability to track and audit overground workers (OGWs) masquerading as professionals. The OGW network has always been the oxygen line of terrorism in Kashmir. While security forces routinely conduct crackdowns on armed terrorists, the real cancer — the logistics network, funding pipelines, and sleeper cells — often escape sustained scrutiny.
Why was Gul’s lab not audited? Why did it take years for intelligence to piece together his full terror blueprint?
From MBA to Mujahid
Gul’s journey from a management graduate in Bangalore to the leader of a terror outfit exposes another failure — our inability to anticipate radicalization even among the educated. He wasn’t some disillusioned village youth. He was a well-educated man who chose jihad.
So, where is our deradicalization policy? Is India prepared to detect such ideological shifts early? Are our universities, especially in sensitive states, working in tandem with security agencies to flag dangerous behavior? Or is the fear of “profiling” muting necessary vigilance?
Time for a National Reckoning
Sajjad Gul’s life story is not just a profile in terrorism. It is a mirror to the multiple cracks in our internal security framework.
•He was arrested. We let him out.
•He was radicalized. We didn’t stop it.
•He fled to Pakistan. We didn’t track him.
•He became a terror chief. We didn’t neutralize him.
•He orchestrated multiple attacks. We didn’t pre-empt them.
•He killed 26 in Pahalgam. And we are still asking how?
No Room for Complacency
India cannot afford to be a reactive state. We cannot mourn our dead every few months and then move on, hoping memory fades and justice sleeps. The Pahalgam attack is not just an act of terror — it’s a national intelligence failure of staggering proportions.
If the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had designated him a terrorist in 2022, and placed a bounty of Rs 10 lakh, why wasn’t there a coordinated effort across agencies — RAW, IB, military intelligence — to go after him aggressively?
We need a new doctrine. One that does not stop at dossiers. One that does not flinch from pursuing justice beyond our borders. One that holds our intelligence machinery accountable when known terrorists return to haunt our homeland.
Sajjad Gul did not just kill 26 people on April 22. He exposed 26 cracks in the wall of our national security.
And the question that remains, as we gather the ashes of the dead, is: Who will answer for this failure?
