The recent and chilling admission by Lashkar-e-Taiba deputy chief Saifullah Kasuri has shattered the final, fragile veneer of professionalism that the Pakistan Army has desperately sought to maintain before the international community. In a video that should serve as a wake-up call to global powers, Kasuri explicitly claimed that the Pakistan Army invites him to lead funeral prayers for its fallen soldiers. This statement is not merely the boasting of a terrorist leader but constitutes a damning confession of the deep, systemic rot that lies at the heart of the Pakistani military establishment. It confirms what India has asserted for decades, which is that the distinction between the uniformed soldiers of the Pakistan Army and the ragtag jihadists of proscribed terror outfits is non-existent. They are two sides of the same extremist coin, bound together not by the laws of the state but by a shared, radical ideology that views India as an existential enemy to be destroyed through a war of a thousand cuts. The facade of the Pakistan Army as a professional fighting force has crumbled, revealing its true nature as an armed syndicate of religious extremism where terror is not just a tactic but a spiritual imperative.
To understand this descent into the abyss, one must look beyond the immediate headlines and examine the genetic code of the institution itself. The Pakistan Army ceased to be a conventional military force decades ago, specifically during the tenure of the dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq. It was under his watch that the professional motto of the army was discarded in favour of “Iman, Taqwa, Jihad fi Sabilillah”, which translates to Faith, Piety and Jihad in the path of Allah. This was not a superficial rebranding exercise but a fundamental rewiring of the soldier’s psyche. By officially enshrining religious war as the primary duty of the soldier, the state erased the boundary between national defence and theological expansionism. The cadets passing out of the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul were no longer being trained solely to defend borders; they were being indoctrinated to fight an ideological battle. The consequences of this shift have been catastrophic. Over the years, this injection of radicalism has percolated from the barracks to the mess halls and finally into the highest echelons of the General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. The result is a military leadership that does not view groups like Lashkar-e-Taiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed as threats to the state but as strategic assets and ideological brethren.
This ideological convergence explains why the Pakistan Army has consistently protected, nurtured and empowered terrorists who have the blood of innocent Indians on their hands. The world witnessed this complicity during the fallout of the Pahalgam terror attack in April 2025 and the subsequent Indian retaliation known as Operation Sindoor. Intelligence reports and visual evidence from that period painted a grotesque picture of collusion, showing Pakistan Army ambulances and personnel retrieving the bodies of slain terrorists. When a national army provides logistical support and ceremonial burials to designated terrorists, it forfeits its right to be treated as a legitimate state actor. It becomes, for all intents and purposes, a rogue militia with nuclear weapons. The claim by Kasuri that he leads funeral prayers for soldiers is the logical conclusion of this trajectory. It suggests a level of reverence and acceptance for terror leadership within the military ranks that is terrifying. It implies that the average Pakistani soldier looks up to a terrorist chieftain for spiritual guidance, validating the extremist violence that these groups perpetrate.
The argument often peddled by apologists is that these elements are merely “rogue actors” within the system, yet the frequency and scale of these instances debunk that theory entirely. The rot is institutional. We have seen serving Brigadiers and Majors arrested not for corruption, but for ties to radical organisations like Hizb-ut-Tahrir, plotting to overthrow the very state they swore to protect to establish a Caliphate. We have seen attacks on Pakistan’s own naval and air bases, such as the PNS Mehran siege, which security experts agree could not have been executed without significant insider help from those sympathetic to the attackers’ cause. These are not anomalies; they are symptoms of a military that has fed the crocodile of extremism for so long that the beast has now moved into the house. The Pakistan Army thought it could cultivate the poison of radicalism to bleed India while keeping its own ranks immune, but history shows that one cannot keep snakes in the backyard and expect them only to bite the neighbours. The ideology of hate that they weaponised against India has now infected their own bloodstream, turning their officers into sympathisers and their soldiers into zealots.
From an Indian perspective, this reality necessitates a permanent shift in how we engage with our neighbour. For years, the international community has urged dialogue, operating under the delusion that there is a rational, secular military leadership in Pakistan that can be reasoned with. This is a fallacy. There is no partner for peace in Rawalpindi because the men in charge are driven by a worldview that fundamentally rejects the idea of peaceful coexistence with a secular, pluralistic India. Their existence and their powers are justified only by the perpetuation of conflict. If peace were to break out tomorrow, the Pakistan Army would lose its stranglehold over the country’s economy and politics. Therefore, they have a vested interest in keeping the pot boiling, utilising these radical proxies to ensure that the flames never die out.
Ultimately, the revelation by the Lashkar-e-Taiba leadership serves as a final verdict on the character of the Pakistan Army. It is an institution that has lost its moral compass, having traded its professional integrity for the intoxicating power of religious extremism. They may wear the uniforms of a modern military, but their actions betray the mindset of a medieval crusade. For India, the lesson is clear and unyielding. We cannot afford complacency. We must maintain a posture of absolute vigilance and offensive defence, recognising that the threats emanating from across the border are not just geopolitical but ideological. The Pakistan Army is not merely a hostile military; it is the armed wing of a radical movement that seeks to destabilise the region. Until the world recognises this and treats them accordingly, the spectre of violence will continue to haunt the subcontinent. India must stand firm, unapologetic in its defence and be ready to neutralise this threat at its source, for there can be no compromise with a force that invites terrorists to bless its dead.
The author is an Advocate, practicing at The High Court of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh at Srinagar.