At least forty Indian Central Reserve Police Force personnel were killed when a convoy in which they were travelling was attacked on the Srinagar-Jammu Highway on 14 February 2019. A suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden vehicle into the bus in which they were travelling. The Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), a Pakistan-based militant group, which has been proscribed as a terrorist group in India, claimed responsibility for the attack a day later. Its recruit, a 22-year-old Kashmiri man, Adil Ahmad Dar, was the driver of the vehicle used in the attack.

India lost no time in reacting to that claim. Its Home Minister, Rajnath Singh, blamed the ‘Pakistan-based, Pakistan-backed’ group for the ‘dastardly’ attack, on 15 February. The Indian Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley, announced the following day that India had withdrawn Pakistan’s Most Favoured Nation trading status and noted that the Ministry of Commerce would notify the World Trade Organisation of that decision. No matter that the decision was more symbolic than effective – Indo-Pakistani trade in the 2017-18 financial year was US$2.4 billion ($3.35 billion), or 0.4 per cent of India’s overall trade, of which Pakistan’s exports to India accounted for around US$500 million ($700 million) – New Delhi also raised its taxes on all Pakistani imports to 200 per cent with immediate effect. It is worth noting that, in the aftermath of the terrorist attack on a military camp, also in Kashmir, in 2016, which New Delhi claimed was at least encouraged by Pakistan, it debated withdrawing Pakistan’s Most Favoured Nation trade status but eventually decided against doing so. The fact that it has withdrawn that status this time around as quickly as it did would appear to indicate that New Delhi had decided to take a stronger stand against Pakistan.