Claim
Then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited Pakistan in 1989, and by the end of 1989 an era of Pakistan-backed terrorism began in Kashmir.
“तत्कालीन प्रधानमंत्री राजीव गांधी पाकिस्तान गए 89 में... और बदले में 89 के अंत में कश्मीर में पाकिस्तान समर्थित आतंकवाद का दौर शुरू हो गया।”▶ Watch source segment
Rationale
Both factual components check out. Rajiv Gandhi did visit Pakistan in 1989 — a bilateral state visit to Islamabad on July 16, 1989 (following his December 1988 SAARC trip). And the armed insurgency in Kashmir, which India and most mainstream accounts describe as Pakistan-backed via ISI support to groups like JKLF and later Hizbul Mujahideen, erupted at the end of 1989, with the December 8, 1989 kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed commonly cited as its watershed moment. The anchor's implied causal link ('in return') between the visit and the insurgency is rhetorical framing, but the stated facts — the 1989 visit and the onset of Pakistan-backed militancy by end-1989 — are accurate.
Evidence
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1989/07/17/gandhi-visit-to-pakistan-signals-thaw/1a6148e3-83d4-48f4-a377-e27ec6c9c1c7/ Confirms Rajiv Gandhi made a state visit to Islamabad on July 16, 1989 — the first bilateral state visit by an Indian PM to Pakistan in nearly two decades (he had also attended the SAARC summit there in December 1988). ✗ unreachable
- https://www.upi.com/Archives/1989/07/10/Gandhi-to-make-first-official-visit-to-Pakistan-in-decades/3006164430262/ Wire-agency confirmation of Rajiv Gandhi's July 1989 official visit to Pakistan. ✓ reachable · archived
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidnapping_of_Rubaiya_Sayeed Documents the December 8, 1989 JKLF kidnapping of Rubaiya Sayeed, widely treated as the watershed marking the start of the armed insurgency in Kashmir at the end of 1989. ✓ reachable · archived
- https://theprint.in/opinion/1989-rubaiya-sayeed-kidnapping-case-policy-kashmir/2797189/ Describes the December 1989 kidnapping and militant releases as the event that set off heightened militancy in Kashmir. ✗ unreachable · HTTP 403