'Utter misrepresentation': MEA's strong rebuttal to Rahul's charge against Jaishankar on Op Sindoor
Rahul Gandhi had shared a clip of EAM S Jaishankar purportedly saying that India had informed Pakistan that Operation Sindoor was targeted at terror infra.
The external affairs ministry on Saturday refuted claims on social media that external affairs minister S Jaishankar had acknowledged that India alerted Pakistan before the launch of Operation Sindoor on May 7, describing the reports as an “utter misrepresentation”.
The clarification followed Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s attack on the government on the grounds that the Indian side informing Pakistan ahead of the military strikes on terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir was a “crime”.
“The external affairs minister had stated that we had warned Pakistan at the start, which is clearly the early phase after Operation Sindoor’s commencement,” the external publicity (XP) division of the ministry said in a brief statement.
“This is being falsely represented as being before the commencement. This utter misrepresentation of facts is being called out,” the statement added.
Gandhi, in a social media post, questioned who had authorised the decision to inform Pakistan and linked it to the safety of Indian Air Force personnel involved in the operation.
“Informing Pakistan at the start of our attack was a crime. EAM has publicly admitted that GOI did it. Who authorised it? How many aircraft did our Air Force lose as a result?” he said.
Gandhi also shared a video clip of Jaishankar saying, “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.”
Jaishankar had made the remarks on Thursday in the context of India telling Pakistan that the military strikes on May 7, the first day of Operation Sindoor, were targeting terrorist infrastructure and not the Pakistani military.
The Fact Check Unit of the Press Information Bureau also rebutted the social media posts regarding Jaishankar, saying he had not made any such statements and was being misquoted.
Operation Sindoor, launched in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack of April 22 that killed 26 civilians, triggered four days of intense armed confrontation between India and Pakistan, using drones, missiles, and long-range weapons, before the two sides reached an understanding on halting military actions on May 10.
