Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri on Wednesday stated that Operation Sindoor, India’s military response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, was both essential and justified to bring the perpetrators to justice and to prevent future cross-border terrorism.
In a press briefing alongside Col Sophia Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh, Misri described the Pahalgam attack as a brutal assault intended to destabilize peace in Jammu and Kashmir. “The attack was marked with extreme barbarity… victims were mostly killed with headshots at close range, in front of their families. It was meant to spread fear and undermine the return of normalcy in Kashmir,” he said.
He further added that intelligence inputs had pointed to the possibility of further terrorist attacks being planned from across the border. “There was a compulsion to deter and prevent such acts. India acted in a measured, non-escalatory, and proportionate manner, focusing solely on terrorist infrastructure,” Misri emphasized.
Targeting Pakistan’s inaction, Misri noted that even two weeks after the Pahalgam attack, no meaningful steps were taken by Islamabad to dismantle terror infrastructure on its soil. “It was deemed essential to bring the perpetrators and planners of the Pahalgam attack to justice,” he said.
Early Wednesday, India carried out precise airstrikes on nine terrorist camps—four located in Bahawalpur, Muridke, and Sialkot in Pakistan, and five in Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. The operation was executed jointly by the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and all targets were successfully neutralized.
The Ministry of Defence confirmed the strikes were aimed at eliminating key Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) operatives, responsible for orchestrating terrorism against India. Operation Sindoor was launched in direct response to the Pahalgam attack, which killed 25 Indian nationals and one Nepali citizen.
