Indo-Pak Unrest: Why Narrative Signals Matter

In early May 2025, following a deadly terrorist attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, tensions between India and Pakistan escalated rapidly. India responded by launching "Operation Sindoor," targeting alleged terrorist infrastructure across the border — a move that triggered retaliatory actions and a sharp rise in regional instability.

During moments like these, the digital information environment becomes central to how people seek updates, share perspectives, and interpret unfolding events. However, what individuals encounter online is shaped by algorithms, language, location, and personal networks. As a result, audiences—even within the same region—can be exposed to vastly different versions of the same story.

In many cases, certain narratives are deliberately amplified by online actors aiming to influence public perception through coordinated activity.

To understand how this dynamic unfolded during the May 2025 crisis, we used Logically Intelligence to analyse open-source content and surface key narrative signals shaping digital discourse.

A Rapid Spike in Online Activity

In the 30 days before 15th May 2025, content related to the tensions between India and Pakistan  spiked by 2,353.88% compared to the previous month. This surge highlights how quickly narratives can scale during a high-profile conflict, and how online discourse often intensifies in lockstep with developments on the ground. 

As seen in Figure 1 below, this sharp increase offers a glimpse into how volatile the information environment becomes during crisis moments.

Figure 1 - Spike in flagged matches and threats during the May 2025 escalation. Logically Intelligence, Situation Room Overview.

What Shaped the Online Discourse?

Using Logically Intelligence’s AI-enabled narrative classification system, we surfaced 101 distinct narratives related to the May 2025 escalation, grouped into 32 broader thematic clusters. The most widely engaged of these was titled “India–Pakistan Military Escalation Amid Kashmir Dispute and Terrorism”, which recorded over 700,000 engagements and was primarily associated with negative sentiment. This is illustrated in Figure 2 below.

Figure 2- Most engaged narrative detected during the May 2025 escalation. Logically Intelligence, AI Narratives

A word cloud of trending terms revealed recurring hashtags such as #pakistan, #indianarmy, #breakingnews, and #pahalgamattack. These reflected both real-time reactions to unfolding events and the broader geopolitical narratives shaping online discourse, as shown in Figure 3 below.

Figure 3: Word cloud showing the most frequently used term entities during the May 2025 escalation. Logically Intelligence, Situation Room Overview

What Are The Top Locations Mentioned?

Geolocation references within the data showed that the United States was mentioned most frequently, with over 34,000 references — nearly twice as many as India (15,200). Mentions of Pakistan-related locations also outpaced Indian ones. China and Russia appeared prominently as well, with 20,800 and 12,200 references respectively, indicating their visibility in the broader geopolitical framing of the crisis. This is visualised in Figure 4 below.

These references reflect the countries and regions being discussed — not the locations of the posters themselves. This distinction is essential, as it points to how global actors and narratives are embedded into local conflicts and how different audiences contextualize unfolding events.

The prominence of U.S., China, and Russia mentions may also reflect broader political interest, global media framing, and diaspora engagement — all of which shape the trajectory of international discourse during high-tension events.

Figure 4 - Top mentioned locations in online content during the May 2025 escalation, as detected across public sources. Logically Intelligence, Location Mentions

Signals of Coordination

Using Logically Intelligence, we identified 30 instances of likely coordinated amplification, where content was shared by accounts with highly similar handles or posting patterns, as seen in Figure 5 below. These signals suggest efforts to push specific narratives more forcefully into the online conversation. 

While coordination alone does not confirm inauthentic behaviour, patterns like these are often early indicators of influence operations — especially during heightened geopolitical tension.

Figure 5 - Total number of threats flagged for coordinated activity based on similar account handles. Logically Intelligence, Coordinated Behaviour Classifier, Similar Account Handles.

Are Offline Consequences Starting to Surface?

We identified over 2,400 posts tagged with emerging boycott threats, typically indicating online calls for commercial, governmental, or institutional backlash tied to the unfolding geopolitical context. This is shown in Figure 6 below.

While these calls may not always translate into real-world action, they can generate significant reputational risk and create public pressure for organisations caught in the crosshairs of polarised discourse. Tracking these early signals can help stakeholders respond proactively to potential fallout.

Figure 6 - Volume of posts flagged as emerging boycott threats during the May 2025 escalation. Logically Intelligence, Boycott Classifier.

What are the key actors spreading information?

One of the most prominent hacktivist groups emerged as a key actor in amplifying narratives during this crisis. Through network analysis, we observed (as seen in Figure 7 below) that content dissemination was often driven by tightly connected clusters of accounts — underscoring the importance of mapping not just what is said but who is driving the conversation and how information spreads across digital ecosystems.

Figure 7 - Network graph showing highly engaged content clusters and account interconnectivity. Logically Intelligence, Networks.

This analysis captures a snapshot of narrative activity between April 10 and May 10, 2025, in the immediate aftermath of the Pahalgam attack and the escalation that followed. While a ceasefire was declared on May 10, the situation remains fluid. Tensions continue through diplomatic friction, online information operations, and intermittent violations along the Line of Control — all of which suggest that the crisis is far from fully resolved as of May 15, 2025.

The goal of this report is not to comment on active developments but to support informed reflection on how narrative signals emerged and evolved in the early stages of the conflict.

What this data offers is not a verdict but a snapshot — one that captures the pace, volume, and complexity of online narratives during geopolitical flashpoints. It reveals what’s being said, who is engaging, and how key networks shape and amplify the conversation.

In moments like these, narrative intelligence doesn’t offer certainty — it offers clarity. It helps illuminate early signals, uncover coordinated influence, and trace how far the ripple effects of conflict extend — often well beyond the borders of the event itself.