The North News
New Delhi, May 8
India’s military action in response to the Pahalgam terror attack is still underway, the government has told opposition leaders, confirming that Operation Sindoor has not yet concluded. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, speaking at an all-party meeting in New Delhi on Thursday, said the operation involved a series of precision airstrikes on targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Sources present at the meeting said Rajnath Singh stressed that India had chosen a restrained and measured approach so far, but warned that any further attacks from across the border would trigger a decisive response.
Union ministers including Amit Shah, Kiren Rijiju, JP Nadda, Nirmala Sitharaman, S Jaishankar, and Chirag Paswan were present at the all-party briefing.
The revelation came a day after Indian armed forces launched targeted airstrikes on nine identified sites believed to house terror infrastructure linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, the two Pakistan-based militant groups India holds responsible for orchestrating the April 22 Pahalgam attack, which killed 26 people — including one Nepali national — and marked the deadliest such assault in the country since the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Officials said the strikes, carried out between 1.04am and 1.30am on Wednesday under the codename Operation Sindoor, were executed entirely from Indian territory using precision-guided munitions and loitering drones, with coordination between the Army, Air Force, and Navy.
At a press briefing yesterday, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, flanked by Colonel Sofiya Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh, said the operation was a necessary act of self-defence under international law. He added that the Pahalgam assault had “direct operational links” to Pakistan-based terror outfits, and accused Islamabad of failing to act, even two weeks after the killings.
“This was not only an act of terror,” Misri said, “but a calculated attempt to destabilise peace and disrupt the tourism revival in Jammu and Kashmir.” The region saw a record 23 million visitors in 2024, and officials believe the timing of the attack was intended to sabotage this resurgence.
Misri said responsibility for the killings was claimed by The Resistance Front (TRF), a group India asserts is a proxy for Lashkar-e-Taiba. He cited evidence shared with the UN’s 1267 Sanctions Committee earlier this year, including TRF’s claims on social media channels affiliated with LeT.
He also said that witness accounts and forensic evidence confirmed the victims — tourists from across India and Nepal — were executed at close range, often in front of their family members.
Despite presenting detailed findings to the United Nations, Misri said Pakistan had made no visible move to dismantle terror networks operating on its soil. He accused the Pakistani government of not only shielding these groups but also trying to erase references to TRF in UN documentation as recently as April.
