Pakistan did not merely issue statements after the Pahalgam massacre. It did something far more deliberate, far more revealing, and far more expensive.
It filed paperwork in Washington.
In the weeks following the April 22 killing of 26 civilians in Pahalgam—and India’s subsequent retaliatory strikes—Pakistan’s representatives submitted a series of documents under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), lodged with the US Department of Justice. These filings, made by U.S. law and lobbying firms retained by Islamabad, are formally classified as “Informational Materials” and Supplemental Statements.
Translated from bureaucratic English, this means:
Pakistan paid a staggering $ 5 million to American firms to circulate its version of events to U.S. officials, lawmakers, think tanks, and influencers—and was legally required to disclose what it was saying. This from a nation that has difficulty feeding its own people and depends on the IMF and other donors for its budgetary needs. While its military brass cavorts in five-star luxury.
Those disclosures are now public. And they are extraordinary.
They do not argue law. They do not present evidence. And they do not engage facts.
The documents, uploaded to the DOJ’s FARA e-file system, set out Pakistan’s “position” on four things: the Pahalgam attack, India’s response, Pakistan’s role (or lack thereof), and why Washington should remain sympathetic. They are not internal memos or diplomatic cables. They are advocacy material distributed in America, on Pakistan’s behalf, under penalty of U.S. law.
This matters because these filings are not denials shouted into the void. They are formal narrative exports, stamped, logged, and archived by the U.S. government.
And what do they say?
First, that Pakistan is deeply committed to peace, de-escalation, and regional stability. (It could just as well have said the moon is made of green cheese). This is always Step One. Pakistan’s desire for peace is never preventative, only retrospective. Calm is discovered only after violence has already been executed by groups Islamabad insists it does not control.
Second, the filings assert Pakistan’s total innocence in the Pahalgam massacre and call for an “independent, impartial international investigation”. This is presented not as a tactic but as proof of confidence.
An investigation, when demanded by a state that controls access, witnesses, and evidence, is not transparency. It shifts the burden of proof entirely onto India while allowing Pakistan to continue its favourite posture: cooperative victim.
Third, the documents characterise India’s retaliation as reckless, escalatory, and destabilising. The strikes are framed as the real danger to regional peace, while the massacre itself is treated as an unfortunate background event—tragic, yes, but strategically inconvenient to dwell on.
This inversion is the filing’s central trick. Terrorism becomes routine, atmospheric. Response becomes criminal.
Fourth, the filings dismiss allegations of Pakistan’s involvement in cross-border terrorism as Indian “disinformation”. This is where advocacy tips into parody. The links between Pakistan-based militant groups and violence in Jammu and Kashmir are not Indian inventions. They appear in UN monitoring reports, U.S. Treasury sanctions, and Western intelligence assessments.
By filing this claim with the U.S. Justice Department, Pakistan is not arguing with India. It is arguing with the American state itself—politely, of course, and through lawyers.
Fifth, Pakistan highlights its counter-terrorism cooperation with the United States. Arrests are mentioned. Intelligence sharing is emphasised. The implication is clear: gratitude is expected.
What the filings do not say is that this cooperation reliably coincides with pressure—from sanctions regimes, financial watchdogs like the FATF, or diplomatic isolation—and reliably fades once attention shifts elsewhere.
Naturally, the documents also accuse India of sponsoring terrorism inside Pakistan, with Balochistan making its ritual appearance. Evidence is not provided. It never is. The asymmetry is the point. On Kashmir-related terrorism, Pakistan demands forensic proof, international inquiries, and neutral adjudicators. On its own allegations, assertion suffices.
Standards, like militants, are clearly context-dependent.
Perhaps the most revealing passage is the call for U.S. mediation. Pakistan urges Washington to play a stabilising role between India and Pakistan. This strategy reframes terrorism as a bilateral misunderstanding, responsibility as shared ambiguity, and retaliation as emotional excess.
India’s rejection of third-party mediation is well known. Pakistan is not appealing to New Delhi. It is appealing to Washington’s reflexive instinct to “balance” narratives—even when balance erases causality.
Finally, the filings insist that Pakistan seeks a mature, bilateral relationship with the United States, independent of regional frictions. This would be more convincing if the documents themselves were not obsessively India-centric. Kashmir, retaliation, Indian narratives, Indian intentions—every grievance loops back to the same axis.
You cannot ask for independence from neighbours while filing grievance literature about them with the U.S. Justice Department.
Taken together, these FARA filings are not diplomacy. Pakistan is not merely denying involvement; it is exporting denial under U.S. law, paying American professionals to ensure its version of events circulates in Washington with a straight face and a legal receipt.
That is the real story here—not just what Pakistan claims, but where it chose to claim it, how it chose to claim it, and whom it paid to do so.
The dark comedy lies in the contradiction. Pakistan asks to be taken at face value while insisting that no one else’s face value should be trusted. It demands investigations it will never enable, dialogue it will never depoliticise, and peace it discovers only after consequences arrive.
In Washington, this counts as advocacy. In South Asia, it counts as routine.
Until Pakistan replaces paperwork with real action, the innocence industry and Pakistan’s putrid perfidy will continue to hum—professionally filed, legally disclosed, and completely detached from reality.
In a career spanning three decades and counting, Ramananda (Ram to his friends) has been the foreign editor of The Telegraph, Outlook Magazine and the New Indian Express. He helped set up rediff.com’s editorial operations in San Jose and New York, helmed sify.com, and was the founder editor of India.com.
His work has featured in national and international publications like the Al Jazeera Centre for Studies, Global Times and Ashahi Shimbun. But his one constant over all these years, he says, has been the attempt to understand rising India’s place in the world.
He can rustle up a mean salad, his oil-less pepper chicken is to die for, and all it takes is some beer and rhythm and blues to rock his soul.
Talk to him about foreign and strategic affairs, media, South Asia, China, and of course India.
