Sindoor serves justice: India strikes at 9 terror locations in Pakistan, PoK
Among targets hit were Jaish-e-Mohammed's HQ deep inside Pakistan in Bhawalpur and terrorist training camps in Muzaffarabad
India on Wednesday carried out precision strikes on terrorist infrastructure at nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack two weeks ago, marking the first attacks on the neighbouring country’s most populous province, Punjab, since the 1971 war that ratcheted up bilateral tensions.
The 26-minute action codenamed Operation Sindoor was announced by thedefence ministry at 1.44am, and the strikes conducted with a mix of missiles and smart munitions fired by aircraft and ground forces targeted bases of UN-proscribed terror groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) located across the international border and the Line of Control (LoC).
India’s “measured, non-escalatory, proportionate and responsible” strikes on sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) were a response to the killing of 26 people in the Pahalgam terror attack, and aimed at pre-empting and deterring more cross-border assaults, foreign secretary Vikram Misri told a media briefing about nine hours later.
The Indian side decided it was essential to bring to justice the perpetrators and planners of the Pahalgam attack as there was “no demonstrable step” from Pakistan to act against terrorist infrastructure on territories controlled by it even after a fortnight, Misri said.
“The manner of the attack was also driven by an objective of provoking communal discord, both in Jammu and Kashmir and the rest of the nation. It is to the credit of the government and the people of India that these designs were foiled,” Misri said, flanked by Colonel Sofiya Qureshi of the Indian Army and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh of the Indian Air Force, who provided details of the terrorist bases that were targeted.
The defence ministry said no Pakistani military facilities were targeted and India demonstrated “considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution”. The two women officers said five terror camps targeted with precision weapons across the LoC were between nine and 30 km inside PoK, and four targets across the international border were six to 100 km inside Pakistan.
Also Read: How the 9 targets India hit during Operation Sindoor were providing support to terrorists
“The locations were so selected to avoid damage to civilian infrastructures and loss of any civilian lives,” wing commander Singh said. The operation began at 1.04am and ended at 1.30am, and Indian jets didn’t cross either the Line of Control or the international border.
India’s actions, Misri said, were in line with the UN Security Council’s statement of April 25 on the Pahalgam terror attack, which underlined the “need to hold perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of this reprehensible act of terrorism accountable and bring them to justice”.
Defence minister Rajnath Singh said in a social media post at 2.46am: “Bharat Mata ki jai (Long live Mother India).” About an hour earlier, the Indian Army said in a separate post: “#PahalgamTerrorAttack Justice is Served. Jai Hind!”
Videos posted on social media by Pakistani users captured a number of massive explosions in both Punjab province and PoK and damaged buildings and structures. Damage from an Indian strike was also visible in Muzaffarabad, the capital of PoK, media reports said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a cabinet meeting in the morning and hailed the strikes, said people aware of developments. The government called an all-party meeting on Thursday. Modi also called off a planned visit to Croatia, Norway and the Netherlands next week.
India released videos of the strikes but didn’t confirm casualties. Pakistan’s chief military spokesman Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said 31 people were killed and 57 injured at six locations.
The last time the Indian armed forces attacked Pakistan’s central Punjab province was during the war of 1971 that led to the creation of Bangladesh. The Indian strikes on Wednesday went far beyond the response to the 2019 Pulwama suicide bombing by the JeM that killed 40 Indian troops and sparked tit-for-tat air strikes, and the retaliatory cross-LoC raids for the death of 19 soldiers in the Uri terror attack of 2016.
The Prime Minister’s Office in Islamabad quoted Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif as saying that India had carried out a “cowardly attack” and Pakistan had “every right to give a befitting reply to this act of war imposed by India”.
An official statement issued after a meeting of the National Security Committee, chaired by Sharif said the “unjustified attacks” targeted civilian areas and the Neelum-Jhelum hydropower project. Pakistan rejected Indian allegations about the presence of terror camps on its territory and reserved the “right to respond, in self-defence, at a time, place, and manner of its choosing” to avenge the loss of lives and violation of its sovereignty, the statement said.
JeM chief Masood Azar said in a message issued on the terror group’s Telegram channel that 14 people, including 10 of his relatives, were killed in a strike at Bahawalpur.
Misri, however, told the media briefing that India’s investigations had led to the gathering of extensive information on the perpetrators of the Pahalgam attack, including an “accurate picture of the planners and backers of this team”. Col Qureshi and Wing Commander Singh said Operation Sindoor was conducted to provide justice to the innocent civilians targeted in Pahalgam, and the targets were selected on the “basis of credible intelligence”.
A statement issued by the Indian embassy in the US, too, said the Indian side has “credible leads, technical inputs, testimony of the survivors and other evidence pointing towards the clear involvement of Pakistan-based terrorists” in the Pahalgam attack.
The name for the action – Operation Sindoor – is a reference to the red vermilion that many Hindu women wear in their hair to signify their married status. During the Pahalgam terror attack, the husbands of several women were killed in front of them, including an Indian Navy officer.
Soon after the strikes, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval spoke to US NSA and secretary of state Marco Rubio and briefed him on the actions. Senior Indian officials briefed their counterparts in the UK, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Russia and envoys of the permanent and non-permanent members of the UN Security Council were briefed by the foreign secretary in New Delhi.
At the White House, US President Donald Trump described the developments as a “shame”. He added, “I guess people knew something was gonna happen, based on a little bit of the past. They’ve been fighting for a long time...Now, I just hope it ends very quickly.”
On the afternoon of April 22, a group of heavily armed terrorists emerged from the woods and targeted tourists on the Baisaran grassland, killing 26 people, 25 of them tourists and 24 of them Hindu, in a killing reminiscent of the heyday of terrorism in the 1990s and 2000s and the worst to rock the country since the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba’s proxy, The Resistance Front (TRF), initially claimed responsibility for the attack that coincided with US vice president JD Vance’s visit to India. New Delhi has since identified three Pakistani terrorists and tracked their digital footprints to underline Islamabad’s role in the attack.
Over the last two weeks, tensions spiralled across the LoC and the international border as Pakistan has flagrantly violated a ceasefire by targeting the Indian side at numerous sites with small-arms fire.
New Delhi has announced a raft of punitive measures, including the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, the closure of its airspace to Pakistani aircraft, the expulsion of most Pakistani nationals, and the closure of the only operational land border crossing at Attari. Pakistan has unveiled several counter-measures such as closing its airspace to Indian airliners and suspending all trade and offered to participate in an independent investigation of the attack.
