Pak jihadists killed Hindu tourist to send a message to PM Modi

PM Modi is hated by Pakistani leadership for Uri surgical strikes, Op Balakot and Op Sindoor. His doctrine is: Ghar main ghus ke marenge

Updated on: Apr 22, 2026, 16:00:52 IST

By Shishir Gupta

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Digital forensics of mobile handsets recovered from the three Lashkar-e-Tayyeba (LeT) terrorists responsible for Pahalgam massacre reveals that the strike was a brutal message from the Pakistan jihad factory to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The message was delivered by the three LeT terrorists six days after (now) Field Marshal Asim Munir’s Hindu hate speech on April 16, 2025.

How India can prevent repeat of Pahalgam

Recovered from the handset of LeT terrorist Hamza Afghani was a threat that the next attack was coming soon. The banner read: “Modi, tera baap ayaa (Modi your father has come). Abu Hamza (generic name for jihadists). Group—IDH (Indian Dog Hunters).” Hamza entered India through Tulail valley (Gurez Sector) in 2024 and was received by lead killer Faizal Jatt aka Suleman Shah in Ganderbal area. He was gunned down by Indian Army para-commandos on July 28, 2025 in Operation Mahadev.

Areas that Army scouted to catch the attackers involved in Pahalgam attack.

That Pakistan hates PM Modi is quite evident as Shivamogga resident Pallavi and her 18-year-old son Abhijeya were given a similar message by the Islamist killers on April 22, 2025 when they asked the terrorists to kill them also along with father Manjunath at Baisaran Valley. Pallavi at that time recalled that the terrorist told them that he would not kill them but asked them to convey the message to Modi. Manjunath, Pallavi and Abhijeya were on a holiday to Pahalgam when the terrorist killed the Shivamogga realtor while leaving victims to tell the dastardly story.

Manjunath Rao (47), a resident of Vijayanagar in Shivamogga district, was killed in the attack while on a family trip with his wife.

Investigations into the attack revealed that Faisal Jatt, whose handler was Sajjid Jatt across the LoC, was involved in an attack on an IAF convoy in Sashithar on May 4, 2024. The group of three moved from Poonch-Rajouri area to Kashmir Valley in the second week of July 2024. Suleman Shah was engaged by the Indian security forces in a counter-terrorist operation in Dachigam on December 3, 2024, in which a Lashkar terrorist Junaid was neutralized. The recovered mobile sets revealed that Jatt got clear instructions from his handlers in Pakistan to attack tourists in Pahalgam after checking their identifications and kill Hindustanis only.

Pakistan's deep state’s hatred for Prime Minister Narendra Modi is understandable that India has retaliated to each and every terror attack with Uri Surgical Strikes in 2018, Operation Bandar (Balakot) in February 2019 and Operation Sindoor in 2025 as a response to Pahalgam massacre. While many within the national security apparatus are still squeamish on making Pakistan understand in the language it understands, PM Modi has articulated India’s counter-terror doctrine when he stated : “ Hum Ghar main gushenge bhi aur marenge bhi (we will not only enter the house or country giving shelter to terrorist but also kill them).”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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