Uri ⇨ Surgical Strike ⇨ RISAT-1 ⇨ ASAT Test

About 2½ years ago on September 30, 2016, India's Radar Imaging Satellite, RISAT-1 suddenly broke into pieces . This occurred ~24 hours after India carried out a cross-border surgical strike against Pakistan on September 29, 2016 in response to the Uri terror attack. RISAT-1 may have helped provide imaging data from orbit as part of that surgical strike operation.

We may never uncover exactly what happened to RISAT-1 - but there are some possible hints:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RISAT-1

Incidents
On 30 September 2016, Joint Space Operations Center identified a debris generating event near RISAT-1. The event created 16 pieces out of which 15 decayed and one was catalogued on 6 October 2016 under NORAD ID: 41797 and COSPAR ID: 2012-017C and decayed on 12 October 2016. Cause of this event remains unknown. A month later on 3 November 2016, RISAT-1 data was declared unavailable on ESA's Copernicus Space Component Data Access portal due satellite outage. Satellite was experiencing anomalies but ISRO denied they were related to fragmentation event.

https://twitter.com/18SPCS/status/783812350860140544

Debris-causing event ID'd near RISAT-1(#38248)
on Sep 30: 16 pieces, 15 decayed. Will catalog last piece on Oct 6. No known collision risk.

— 18 SPCS (@18SPCS) October 5, 2016

https://spacedata.copernicus.eu/web/cscda/news/archive/-/asset_publisher/MUXrdlTX10kW/content/risat-1-unavailability

https://orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/quarterly-news/pdfs/odqnv20i4.pdf#page=4

The Indian Radar Imaging Satellite (RISAT)-1 Earth observation satellite experienced a possible fragmentation event on 30 September 2016 between 2:00 and 6:00 GMT due to an unknown cause.

It's very unlikely for a satellite of RISAT-1's construction to have experienced some sort of spontaneous disintegration - and that too, a coincidental 24 hrs after the surgical strikes.

https://idrw.org/did-loss-of-a-spy-satellite-pushed-india-to-develop-its-own-anti-satellite-missile-system/


India's recent ASAT test was approximately 2 years in the making, having been undertaken following an order from the Prime Minister's Office. That order was likely given not long after the loss of RISAT-1.