Judging Freedom - Patrick Lancaster: LIVE from the India / Pakistan border - Will the ceasefire hold?

Episode Date: May 20, 2025

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you Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, May 20th, 2025. The intrepid, the fearless, the ubiquitous Patrick Lancaster joins us from New Delhi, India. Patrick, you're always in the hot spots. Let me guess why you're in India because of the Indian-Pakistani conflict. Why are you there and what are you doing there, my man? And welcome here. Well, thank you, Judge.

It's always great to be on with you and as always really happy to be able to show some information that might not be seen in other places with you. So yeah, I'm here in New Delhi, I've been here for several days. Of course, yes, you're correct, I came because of the ongoing conflict between India and Pakistan and it's really, it's been an educational time for me here. I've been meeting with many people. Now this is just the first stop for me. The idea is very soon to go towards the contact line or the line of control, the front line, whatever you want to call it.

Even though there is a ceasefire on, but we'll get in to that. Basically, to set it up for the viewers, probably most know the timeline, but just to go over things. Of course, Indian Pakistan has been in a conflict since, well, you could say 1947 when Pakistan was created. Hasn't been hundreds of years like Trump said, but everybody slips up once in a while. And there's been four full-scale wars that have gone on between the two countries. But to fast forward so we don't go through a whole history lesson here. In April of this year, April 22nd, there was a horrible terrorist attack which happened in the state of Jammu and Kashmir in Pahal Gram where 26 tourists were killed, one of them a Christian, but the majority Hindu, and a non-Muslim were killed in a very horrible way.

The survivors said that these terrorists had many of the men stripped down to show that they either were circumcised, which would indicate they were Muslim or not, which would indicate they were Hindu. And when they verified that they were not Muslim, they shot them in the head and killed them in front of their wives, family members, children, and told the survivors to go talk to their presidents. President Modi in India, and these terrorist organizations, these terrorists were reported by the Indian authorities as being parts of Pakistani backed and based terrorist organizations.

And then this obviously would trigger a huge response. And the next day, the Indian government suspended the Indus Treaty which controls the water going into Pakistan from India where they closed certain dams and cut off the water to Pakistan. It's basically saying enough is enough. Hostilities started on the border, skirmishes started, and then India launched Operation Sindur on May 7th.

Operation Sindur on May 7th and Operation Sindur was to target and did target nine terrorist is purportedly terrorist camps sponsored and backed by Pakistan, both in Pakistan proper, you could say, and the disputed area of that is has occupied by Pakistan in the state of Jammu Kashmir. So, they hit and reportedly the Indian that they knocked out 20% the Air Force infrastructu can take that with a grai country is a little bit ex the time

but I've been here on the ground in New Delhi trying to work as I said, work my way up to the frontline but I've been talking to the representatives of many different parts of the the society here, religious figures, political figures,

military and just normal people but what they feel about the situation between India and Pakistan. Let me just run a clip from the Indian ambassador to Israel, who's quite affluent in English, and who has emerged as somewhat of a spokesperson for the Indian government, giving the Indian view of what happened not inconsistent at all with what you just said. Chris, cut number, sought number one. Escalation started when the terrorists killed 26 innocent tourists in Pahelgaon. And this in an unprecedented war, you know, these terrorists killed based on the religion. They asked their religion first before killing them.

And 26 innocent lives were lost. And that is when our prime minister decided that we need to teach them a lesson. And then we conducted this Operation Sindoor. And the aim of this, objective of this, Operation Sindhu was to attack terrorist, terrorist infrastructure, as well as the supporters of those terrorists. And on May, this incident in Pehalgaon happened on 22nd of April. And on 7th of May, we launched this Operation Sindhu. And the two main groups which are involved in cross-border terrorism from Pakistan are Lashkar-e-Taiba

and Jashya Mohammed. And they have been creating problems over the past two, three decades to us. It is not for the first time that they have attacked in the instance cross-border terrorism and all these groups are involved. Even in the past or the past two decades, they are involved in a number of terrorist attacks in India. Is there any evidence or even an allegation that the Pakistani government was behind this, authorized it, knew about it, looked the other way, anything like that? Well, Judge, I've been meeting with several military officers and even generals, retired major generals

here in New Delhi, and of course the people. And the overall sentiment is from these high ranking officials and the political figures as well that I've met with, is that these terrorists, they say these terrorist organizations are basically one in the same with the Pakistani military and you know, they say it even goes best backing, they're together. They pointed out the fact that one of the people, they say terrorists that were killed in these attacks in the operation Sundur on Pakistani bases, they said these terrorists were killed and they were given a state funeral. So they say that indicates that these terrorists are part of the infrastructure of Pakistan.

And of course, after Operation Sindor took an effect, the Pakistani government launched their own operation, Operation Banyan-al-Marsus, where they targeted India back. the Indian side of the Indian But they say the difference between the attacks of Sindor on Pakistan and the Pakistani attacks on India is that civilians were targeted. 13 people were killed, four of which were reportedly children and one a soldier. So they pointed out the fact that the they accused the Pakistani government of targeting civilians on top of the civilians that were killed in this terrorist attack. Patrick, let me play the clip that you presented us of your interview with this retired Indian general who goes into exactly what you're just talking about. Chris, P1.

Let me put into perspective, India and Pakistan, and that's what we are discussing today, have been on this simmering boil for a long period with short spurts of ceasefire, some long spurts as well. But one thing has been common that the abetment of terrorists and the philosophy of Pakistan as a state to sponsor terrorism into the heartland of India. And maybe it's an aghap of what they perceive of Kashmir, maybe it's, you know, the ideological warfare, they want to propagate as part of the Islamic caliphate. It's their call, but it's been going on.

And in between, in the last few decades, we've had few wars from 1948 going to 65 to 71. Then we had the Kargil skirmish and then we had also a long-standing mobilization during Aap Prakram in 2001 and 2002, when from May of this year to the October of next year, we were all embroiled in some kind of a confrontation posturing where we eventually didn't go to a war, but it was just short of war. This time around, what has happened is that the chips are down in Pakistan. And when I say chips are down, the chips are down of the entire terror camp in that place, which is governed by the military, governed by the ISI. And obviously the polity has very little role just to say yes.

And to make this terror action happen, I think was the biggest mistake. So the cases belly for the Indian forces to act was given with the Balgam terror attack. And not only it was just a terror attack, it was a terror attack based on ideological differences, based on differentiating people on the basis of the religion. And that is what caught the eye, not only of India, but also the civilized world.

That doesn't sound to me as though this ceasefire is going to last, Patrick. Yes, and actually, yeah, that was Colonel Dev. He gave us a lot of great information about the situation. One thing he pointed out that, yeah, it's a ceasefire But it kind of excludes the contact line or the line of control as they call it They he says constantly every night there is is skirmishes back and forth This is what he says I've said I haven't been there yet to witness it with my own eyes But I'm doing my best to get as much information as possible. And the generals that I have met, they have, again, they called it a, they said it's called

the ceasefire, but it's more of not a ceasefire, but a pause. And they also pointed out that within hours after the ceasefire, that Pakistan launched a major drone attack over the border. They said that most of the drones, almost all, were knocked out of the sky. But one Major General Dayal pointed out to me that in order for peace to come, it needs to be pressed through war, unfortunately. And that's the only way that they're going to understand. All right. I'm going to play. I'm going to play another clip. My video is going to be coming out on that full interview soon.

Okay. It's a great interview, Patrick. I'm going to play another clip from ambassador Singh who says the ceasefire is in place, but it's not over. And then after the clip, I'm going to ask you, what is the Pakistani version of all this? But here is the Indian ambassador to Israel in that same interview discussing the ceasefire. Chris, sought number two. The ceasefire is holding. As far as India concerned, is that the end of the matter for now?

Is that the end of this round of escalation? No, the ceasefire is still holding on, but we have made it very clear that this operation Sindur, it's paused. It's not yet over. So our fight against terrorism will continue. We have set a new normal. And the new normal is that we will follow

an offensive strategy. Wherever terrorists are, we have to kill those terrorists. And we have to destroy their terrorist infrastructure. So that's still not over, but yes, at present while we are speaking, ceasefire is in touch. Wherever those terrorists are, he says, we have to kill those terrorists and destroy their infrastructure.

What he didn't say, but I guess he meant, even if it's in Pakistan, another country. What is the Pakistani version of all of this? Does the government conceivably bear any responsibility for the horrific acts of these terrorists engaged in? Well, they say that they are not responsible for the actions of these terrorists, but here in New Delhi and across India, the overall sentiment is that that's laughable. They say that the, again, that the Pakistani forces and the terrorists are almost one in the same. They point out how many terrorists over the years that have used Pakistan as a refuge, particularly Osama bin Laden.

And they blame, the Indians blame Pakistan for most of the terrorist acts around the world. Now, this is what they have to say about the situation. I'm not going to sit here and act like I know the real situation in Pakistan because I'm not there. I'm here in India showing what I see here in the opinions and the perspectives that I get here and as always say all of my reports, it's the

responsibility of the people absorbing this news to think for themselves get as much information from as many sources as they can to educate themselves. Right? It's not one source has all the information as you know, Judge. Here you are at a moment of stress talking about a dogfight, Chris P2.

Originally this footage was reported as the aftermath of a dogfight over Pakistan between a Pakistani aircraft and an Indian aircraft. But after it came down, photos further came out showing that it was possibly a drone that was knocked out of the sky. Information is still coming. And here we can see the Indian military hitting Pakistani military positions with anti-tank weapons. Has this gone beyond the military, meaning

have the Indian missiles and drones hit Pakistani civilians and have the Pakistani missiles and drones hit Indian civilians? Yes, Judge, as I was saying, the Indians did report that several civilians were killed, and they pointed out the difference between what they were attacking. These generals made a huge point to say that they were attacking military targets and destroying military targets, but these drone attacks and missile attacks from Pakistan, they said, were somewhat indiscriminate in many cases. But there was not many casualties, I believe 62 altogether, 49 injured, 12 or 13 killed some of it which children and Reportedly no civilians on the Pakistani side were killed

Here's another clip of yours talking about war between civilians P3 Unfortunately like many wars. This isn't just a war between soldiers now, it's reported, but civilians as well. Civilians are getting targeted. There's many reports in India about civilians being killed already. And not only civilians, but religious sites being targeted by Pakistani forces.

Wow. Not only civilians, but religious sites being targeted, not accidentally hit, but targeted. I guess this is going to go on. I mean, you know, they've been fighting over Kashmir since it's long, you know, since 1947. It's sort of cultural with them, is it not? Yes, Judge. And again, unfortunately, I'm going off a lot of hearsay here, talking to the people,

doing the best I can to get as much information as I can. But soon I'll be getting closer towards the contact line, hopefully, and getting be getting closer towards the contact line hopefully and getting more information actually from the source. So we're gonna keep on that. People could find all that information on my YouTube channel as I release the videos. I've got a lot more information coming out here in New Delhi and more coming hopefully on the front line. All right, Patrick, stay in touch with us. We appreciate your courage and your analysis and your in your face reporting. Stay well, stay safe.

We'll talk to you again soon. All right, thank you very much, Judge. Of course. Coming up on all of these topics, but mainly on domestic ones, at 11 o'clock, the one, the only, the great Ralph Nader. At two o'clock, Colonel Douglas MacGregor. At three o'clock, Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski.

Justin Appalachiano for Judging Freedom. MUSIC