After India strikes Pak, New York Times drops ‘militants’ for ‘terrorists’ in headline

The New York Times has shifted its editorial tone, addressing the Pakistan-based perpetrators as “terrorists” in its headline following India’s cross-border strikes under Operation Sindoor. The front-page headline on its website read: “India Strikes Pakistan Two Weeks After Terrorist Attack in Kashmir,” marking a departure from the paper’s previously criticised nomenclature.

The coverage addressed India’s reaction to the April 22 assault in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, where 26 people were killed. The NYT reported, “India said it had struck Pakistan after gathering evidence ‘pointing towards the clear involvement of Pakistan-based terrorists’ in last month’s attack on civilians.”

The paper further added that India described its actions as “measured, responsible and designed to be nonescalatory in nature,” pointing out that “only known terror camps” were hit.

The use of the term “terrorist” in the NYT’s headline caught a lot of attention, especially due to the backlash the publication suffered last month. Critics, including the US House Foreign Affairs Committee, slammed the NYT for initially describing the Pahalgam attackers as “militants” or “gunmen” — terms perceived to downplay the atrocity.

In a highly critical post on X, the committee shared a screenshot of the original NYT headline — “At Least 24 Tourists Gunned Down by Militants in Kashmir”—with the word “militants” crossed out and replaced by “terrorists” in bold red letters. The accompanying caption read:

“Hey, @nytimes we fixed it for you. This was a TERRORIST ATTACK plain and simple. Whether it’s India or Israel, when it comes to TERRORISM the NYT is removed from reality,” the committee wrote, calling out what it sees as a pattern of minimising terror acts through diluted terminology.

The New York Times, in its report, referred to the terrorists as “militants” and “gunmen”, noting that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi “called the shooting, the worst against civilians in the region for years, a ‘terror attack’ and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice”.

ALSO READ: Operation Sindoor: In the name is India’s message, both humane and heroic