Punjab Police have dismantled two ISI-run terror modules and arrested nine individuals, including four minors, over a plot to attack Jantar Mantar during recent protests. One of the accused, Sukhman Singh, admitted to being in direct contact with a Pakistan-based handler.

The network traces back to Shahzad Bhatti, a Pakistani gangster-terrorist whose operatives had already been intercepted by Kolkata STF while running an almost identical plot against the same target. The repeat targeting points to a standing directive rather than a one-off cell, highlighting a deliberate strategy by handlers across the border.

The same weeks saw Kashmir absorb two attacks built on identical logic. On 22 July, Head Constable Ashiq Hussain was shot dead in Anantnag, marking the first attack on a policeman anywhere in the Valley this year.

Nine days later, terrorists killed two labourers from Chhattisgarh at a brick kiln in Kulgam. Neither incident required a trained infiltrator crossing the Line of Control. Both leaned on local operatives against targets chosen for their vulnerability rather than strategic value, underscoring a shift in tactics.

This shift aligns with developments on Pakistan’s own side of the border. Rawalpindi is grappling with an insurgency in Balochistan that it cannot contain, a protest movement in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir that it cannot suppress, and an economy that leaves little room for the kind of trained infiltration campaigns it once ran.

Moving an armed operative across a hardened LoC costs money and risks exposure that the Pakistan Army cannot easily absorb at present. By contrast, recruiting a minor over WhatsApp and using a jailed handler’s digital wallet costs almost nothing and leaves no direct state fingerprint. It is terrorism scaled down to match a shrinking budget and a leadership with fewer places left to hide its hand.

What connects Amritsar, Kolkata, Anantnag and Kulgam is the reliance on over-ground workers, local sympathisers and small-time recruits performing the legwork that infiltrators once did, all run remotely by handlers.

It is cheaper and more deniable, but it depends on OGW networks that Indian agencies have spent years mapping and infiltrating. Two modules with near-identical targets being rolled up before they could act, in two different cities, demonstrates the tactic’s own weakness.

A campaign built on cheap, disposable recruits is also a campaign built on recruits who talk, panic, or get flagged early. Pakistan may have found a cheaper way to keep trying, but it has not found a way to succeed.

Additional intelligence assessments suggest that ISI’s reliance on digital communication platforms such as WhatsApp and encrypted wallets is increasing, with handlers exploiting anonymity and low-cost recruitment methods.

However, Indian counter-terror agencies have strengthened surveillance of these channels, leading to early detection and disruption. Analysts note that the repeat targeting of Jantar Mantar, a symbolic protest site in Delhi, reflects an attempt to exploit domestic unrest for international propaganda, but the failure of both modules underscores the resilience of Indian security measures.

Agencies