Defence minister Rajnath Singh said in the Lok Sabha on Monday that the Indian Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) called up his Pakistan counterpart around 1.35 am on May 7, just after India's strikes on terror hubs in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Pak's Punjab province.
“Using a hotline, he informed the Pakistan DGMO about the rationale and methodology of Operation Sindoor. He told him the fact that these attacks were not escalatory in nature, and that we did not intend to take these forward,” Rajnath Singh told the House during the special debate on the subject.
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“However, Pakistan refused to understand the rationale. In the following days, Pakistan violated the ceasefire by attacking civilian and military areas,” the minister added, speaking in Hindi.
He equated India's action to Lord Hanuman's burning of Ravan's Lanka in the Hindu epic Ramayan. Parliamentary affairs minister Keren Rijiju had invoked the epic, too, in a post on X ahead of the special debate.
Rajnath Singh, giving details of the operation, stressed that India had acted in self-defence and in retaliation after three armed terrorists killed 26 men in Pahalgam, a tourist destination in Jammu and Kashmir.
{{/usCountry}}Rajnath Singh, giving details of the operation, stressed that India had acted in self-defence and in retaliation after three armed terrorists killed 26 men in Pahalgam, a tourist destination in Jammu and Kashmir.
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“We made special efforts to ensure civilian areas were not hit in Pakistan. We only wanted to target terror infrastructure… I say with pride that our armed forces not only proved capable but also successful,” he added.
He declared that India did not lose any important assets in Pakistan's cross-border firing and drone operations thereafter.
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Operation Sindoor was launched in the early hours of May 7, specifically between 1:05 and 1:30 am. The operation involved missile strikes on nine terrorist targets, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) release issued at 1.44 am said.
Nine targets were chosen and hit, Rajnath Singh said on Monday.
“No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted. India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution. These steps come in the wake of the barbaric Pahalgam terrorist attack,” the government had said immediately after the operation too.