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Operation Sindoor: Govt accuses Rahul Gandhi of spreading misinformation
The MEA clarified that EAM S Jaishankar was in fact talking about the early phase after the commencement of Operation Sindoor.
The ministry of external affairs clarified on Saturday that EAM S Jaishankar did not say that India informed Pakistan about Operation Sindoor in advance, accusing anyone suggesting so of ‘utter misrepresentation’ of facts.
Leader of the opposition in Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, on Saturday accused the Narendra Modi government of "informing" Pakistan about targeting terror infrastructure as part of Operation Sindoor, saying it was a crime and asking who had authorised it.
Rahul Gandhi had accused external affairs minister S Jaishankar of publicly admitting that the Centre had informed Pakistan of the action. He asked how many aircraft the Indian Air Force lost as a result of such information being shared with Islamabad.
"Informing Pakistan at the start of our attack was a crime. EAM has publicly admitted that the GOI did it. Who authorised it? How many aircraft did our air force lose as a result?" the Rae Bareli MP said in a post on X.
He also shared an undated video of the EAM purportedly saying that India had informed Pakistan of the action against terror infrastructure on its soil.
The ministry of external affairs clarified that EAM S Jaishankar was in fact talking about the early phase after the commencement of Operation Sindoor and it would be a ‘gross misrepresentation’ of facts to suggest otherwise.
“EAM Dr S Jaishankar had stated that we had warned Pakistan at the start, which is clearly the early phase after Operation Sindoor’s commencement. This is being falsely represented as being before the commencement. This utter misrepresentation of facts is being called out,” the external publicity division of the MEA said in the statement.
PIB Fact checks claim
In the video shared by Rahul Gandhi, EAM S Jaishankar can be heard saying that the government had sent a message to Pakistan saying that the strikes are not on the military and just on the terror infrastructure.
"At the start of the operation, we had sent a message to Pakistan, saying, 'We are striking at terrorist infrastructure and we are not striking at the military. So the military has the option of standing out and not interfering in this process. They chose not to take that good advice," the minister can be heard saying in the clip.
The Press Information Bureau (PIB), however, has debunked claims that Jaishankar had said India informed Pakistan ahead of Operation Sindoor.
The PIB's Fact Check Unit said the minister had not made any such statement and that he was being misquoted.
Operation Sindoor was the Indian offensive against terror camps in Pakistan’s Punjab province and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) following the April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam.
