How a Pakistan-India war could spiral into nuclear Armageddon leaving 125 MILLION dead in a week – as tensions between two neighbours reach boiling point after Kashmir atrocity

The slaughter of more than two dozen Indian tourists holidaying in the meadows of the Baisaran valley by alleged Pakistani Islamist gunmen has left two nuclear-armed powers edging closer to the brink of a potentially cataclysmic conflict.

The April 22 shooting, in which assailants reportedly singled out anyone who could not recite Islamic verses for execution, constitutes the worst massacre of civilians in India since the Mumbai bombings in 2008.

It also represents a ‘massive intelligence failure’ on the part of India’s security services and ‘cannot go unpunished’, especially amid public outrage and demand for action, according to many Indian analysts.

Bilateral relations are now ‘arguably at their lowest point in decades, just short of war’, according to Dr Manali Kumar, Indian national identity and foreign policy expert at the University of St. Gallen.

But any overt military attack would likely draw an equally harsh response from Pakistan – a scenario that could prove extremely costly and quickly push both parties beyond the point of no return.

The armed forces of India, one of the world’s largest economies and its most populous nation, far outstrip those of Pakistan on paper. India maintains an active army of more than 1.2 million, plus another 250,000 servicemen in the navy and air force, compared to Pakistan’s total of less than 700,000.

Yet defence experts warn that Islamabad’s military capabilities are still ‘in the same order of magnitude’ as those of Delhi and are robust enough to ‘inflict significant damage and cause massive casualties’.

Pakistan, unlike India, does not need to dedicate significant military resources to monitor China.

And although both powers boast somewhat comparable nuclear arsenals of around 170 warheads each, according to the Arms Control Association, India maintains a ‘no first use’ nuclear doctrine. Pakistan has no such qualms about launching first.

Researchers warned in 2019 that a nuclear conflict in such a heavily populated part of the world could leave 125 million people dead in a matter of days.

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India launches its Agni-5 nuclear capable long range missile

The UN urged both New Delhi and Islamabad to show ‘maximum restraint’

The body of Adil Hussain Shah, who was killed in the April 22 shooting, is carried for burial

Indian authorities claim the killing spree on April 22 was perpetrated by Pakistani nationals associated with the terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) – or the ‘Army of the Righteous’ – a Salafi-Islamist outfit also responsible for the devastation in Mumbai 17 years ago. 

Islamabad has resolutely denied any involvement in the attacks and warned it would respond swiftly to any Indian military manoeuvres launched ‘on the pretext of baseless and concocted allegations’.

LeT is widely suspected of having links with Pakistan’s Inter-Services-Intelligence (ISI) agency, sparking fears Delhi could well justify a military operation across the de facto border between India and Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

This boundary, now known as the Line of Control (LoC), was established in 1949 after the United Nations brokered a ceasefire between newly independent India and Pakistan, who went to war over Kashmir following the British partition of India in 1947.

Thousands of people died in the conflict before the UN ceasefire came into effect and several flare-ups have erupted since, with casualties mounting each time.

Analysts are split over what a potential Indian operation would look like – whether Delhi would launch an incursion into Pakistan-administered Kashmir or take the bolder tack of striking undisputed Pakistani territory, for example, by attacking suspected LeT targets.

But today, any major military clash between India and Pakistan would unfold beneath the looming spectre of a possible nuclear clash.

Researchers have already laid out a hauntingly detailed account of the havoc a nuclear conflict would wreak on the civilian populations of both nations and beyond.

Their article, published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 2019, reported that a nuclear war would ‘kill tens of millions of people immediately and would create enormous environmental impacts, causing famines that affect millions – or even billions – around the world’.

‘The direct effects of this nuclear exchange would be horrible; the authors estimate that 50 to 125 million people would die, depending on whether the weapons used had yields of 15, 50, or 100 kilotons,’ the article read.

‘The ramifications for Indian and Pakistani society would be major and long-lasting, with many major cities largely destroyed and uninhabitable.

‘Smoke and radioactive particles would ‘spread globally within weeks… cooling the global surface, reducing precipitation and threatening mass starvation’.

Pakistan’s information minister yesterday claimed ‘credible intelligence’ suggested India could begin its military operation within two days.

The statement by Attaullah Tarar came after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday met with army and security chiefs, giving the military ‘complete operational freedom’ to respond to the attack, a senior government source said.

However, Indian analysts have pointed out that Delhi will have to consider the potential consequences of any armed response for its wider objectives on the international stage – namely, to cement India’s status as an influential global power, and a responsible, stable leader of South Asia in line with its ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy.

People burn an Indian flag and an effigy depicting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a rally against India’s suspension of the Indus Water Treaty over the Pahalgam attacks

Indian army patrols on way to Hapatnar in Anantnag district south of Kashmir on April 29, 2025

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met yesterday with army and security chiefs

A policeman searches the car of a commuter along a street in Srinagar on April 30, 2025

‘In a conventional military action-reaction scenario, it is hard for even a stronger military to emerge as a clear winner,’ said Happymon Jacob, Indian foreign policy expert and associate professor of disarmament studies at the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

‘A military action-reaction spiral with Pakistan, laden with escalatory potential, will take Delhi’s political and diplomatic attention away from its global objectives.

‘India has successfully managed to de-hyphenate itself from Pakistan in the eyes of the international community,’ he wrote in a column for The Hindustan Times, adding that nuclear fears and concerns about military escalation in the subcontinent would erode that decades-long progress. 

Professor Amitabh Mattoo, Chair of the Centre for International Politics, Organisation and Disarmament and former member of India’s National Security Council’s Advisory Board, called for a strong response to the atrocity by New Delhi.

‘Condemnation (of the April 22 shooting) is necessary but insufficient… Pakistan has too often acted without paying a proportionate cost. That must change,’ he told The Hindu, claiming that the attack fits Pakistani strategy of ‘inflict pain on India, sow uncertainty in Kashmir… under a thin veil of deniability’. 

But he went on to add that Delhi’s response cannot afford to be rash, advocating for a long-term, calculated and systematic deterrence strategy that stops short of overt military clashes. 

‘Deterrence… is the imposition of credible, visible, and cumulative costs that alter the behaviour of the adversary over time.

‘This includes sustained efforts to diplomatically isolate Pakistan on platforms where it seeks legitimacy; the careful reconsideration of trade and water-sharing mechanisms that Pakistan depends on; and the expansion of covert and intelligence-based capabilities to disrupt terrorist infrastructure across the Line of Control (LoC).’ 

Though no major military offensives have been launched at the time of writing, both sides have dramatically ramped up their military readiness amid daily skirmishes across the LoC and unleashed a raft of diplomatic punishments. 

India launched naval drills, test-fired several long-range missile systems and suspended a key treaty that ensures India supplies Pakistan with water from the Indus River, a provision that is crucial for Pakistan’s water supply and agricultural economy.

The unprecedented abeyance of the treaty on India’s part is seen by some analysts as a key factor that could hasten a full-scale armed engagement.

Indian tourists are pictured in Pahalgam south of Srinagar on April 29, 2025

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Dr Kumar told MailOnline: ‘India’s response, moving beyond conventional diplomatic and past kinetic military actions to include the unprecedented suspension of participation in the foundational Indus Waters Treaty… carries immense risks. 

‘It is perceived by Pakistan as an existential threat – an act of war if water flows are curtailed – drastically increasing the likelihood of military confrontation between two nuclear-armed states.

‘This also sets a dangerous precedent for the weaponisation of shared resources, raising alarms among India’s other neighbours who will be watching how this develops very carefully.’

Pakistan in turn deployed its air force to close its airspace to Indian airlines and has mobilised its army with footage appearing to show artillery batteries and armoured vehicles on their way to the LoC.

But even if a significant military conflict is avoided, the events of April 22 will have a debilitating impact on India-Pakistan relations and exacerbate tensions between Hindu and Muslim populations.

Dr Kumal added: ‘Continued militarisation and political hardening pose significant domestic risks for India’s internal security. A major concern is the worsening hate and communal tension against Muslims across India… and crucially, the condition of the Kashmiri people is severely impacted.

‘The intensified security crackdown, economic ruin, and erosion of civil liberties following the attack further deteriorate their already contested ‘normalcy’, fuelling alienation and grievances and posing long-term challenges to peace within Indian-administered Kashmir. 

‘Driven by ideology and a disregard for human life, terrorist activity in Kashmir tragically impacts Kashmiris and Muslims across India more than anyone else, and makes any kind of peaceful resolution of the dispute between India and Pakistan even harder to achieve.’

The international community has roundly called for cooler heads to prevail and warned against escalation in Kashmir, though the US has declared it stands in solidarity with India and supports Delhi’s right to defend itself.

But India’s commitment to handling its affairs with Pakistan internally means global players will likely have little sway on how the saga plays out. 

Timeline of India-Pakistan tensions

1947 – Months after British India is partitioned into a predominantly Hindu India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan, the two young nations fight their first war over control of Muslim-majority Kashmir, then a kingdom ruled by a Hindu monarch. The war killed thousands before ending in 1948. 

1949 – A UN-brokered ceasefire line leaves Kashmir divided between India and Pakistan, with the promise of a UN-sponsored vote that would enable the region’s people to decide whether to be part Pakistan or India. That vote has never been held. 

1965 – The rivals fight their second war over Kashmir. Thousands are killed in inconclusive fighting before a ceasefire is brokered by the Soviet Union and the United States. Negotiations in Tashkent ran until January 1966, ending in both sides giving back territories they seized during the war and withdrawing their armies. 

1971 – India intervenes in a war over the independence of East Pakistan, which ends with the territory breaking away as the new country of Bangladesh. An estimated 3 million people are killed in the conflict. 

1972 – India and Pakistan sign a peace accord, renaming the ceasefire line in Kashmir as the Line of Control, a heavily fortified stretch of military outposts that divide the region between them. Both sides deploy more troops along the frontier, turning it into a heavily fortified stretch of military outposts. 

1989 – Kashmiri dissidents, with support from Pakistan, launch a bloody rebellion against Indian rule. Indian troops respond with brutal measures, intensifying diplomatic and military skirmishes between New Delhi and Islamabad. 

1999 – Pakistani soldiers and Kashmiri fighters seize several Himalayan peaks on the Indian side of the territory. India responds with aerial bombardments and artillery. At least 1,000 combatants are killed over 10 weeks and a worried world fears the fighting could escalate to nuclear conflict. The US eventually steps in to mediate, ending the fighting. 

2016 – Militants sneak into an army base in Indian-controlled Kashmir, killing at least 18 soldiers. India responds by sending special forces inside Pakistani-held territory, later claiming to have killed multiple suspected rebels in ‘surgical strikes.’ Pakistan denies that the strikes take place, but it leads to days of major border skirmishes. Combatants and civilians on both sides are killed. 

2019 – The two sides again come close to war after a Kashmiri insurgent rams an explosive-laden car into a bus carrying Indian soldiers, killing 40. India sends carries out air strikes in Pakistani territory, claiming to have struck a militant training facility. Pakistan later shoot down an Indian warplane and captures a pilot. He was later released, de-escalating tensions. 

2025 – Militants attack Indian tourists in the Pahalgam resort town in Indian administered Jammu and Kashmir and kill 26 men, most of them Hindus. India blames Pakistan for the attack, something Islamabad denies, and vows revenge on the attackers, sending tensions to their highest point since 2019. Both sides cancel visas of each other’s citizens, recall diplomats, shut their only land border crossing and close their airspace to each other. New Delhi also suspends a crucial water-sharing treaty with Islamabad. 

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