New Delhi:
The nine terror camps and training facilities targeted in ‘Operation Sindoor‘ – India’s overnight military response to the Pahalgam attack – represented a “measured, non-escalatory, proportionate, and responsible” answer to Pakistan’s support of cross-border terrorism, the government said Wednesday.
The targets – four in Pak and five in Pak-occupied Kashmir, or PoK – were selected based on “credible intelligence” and focused on “dismantling terrorist infrastructure and disabling terrorists”.
‘Operation Sindoor’ – India’s first tri-service military mission since the 1971 war with Pak – also represented the right to respond to and pre-empt cross-border terrorism, the government said.
The attack began at 1.05 am Wednesday, May 6, and lasted just 25 minutes, within which time the nine camps were hit with stand-off munitions like the HAMMER bomb and the SCALP missile, as well as others that can hover over an area to confirm its target before detonating.
The attacks were synchronised to avoid detection and maximise damage, the government said.
Before the briefing government sources told NDTV 70 terrorists were killed.
READ | “Swift, Surgical, Unapologetically Assertive”: India Kills 70 Terrorists In Pak
At least 60 others were injured.
The precise nature of India’s strikes – which sources said may be the first wave, depending on how Pak responds – underlines the country’s steadfast position on cross-border terrorism.
India has repeatedly called out Pakistan for sheltering and aiding terror groups.
In his comments, Mr Misri said the Pahalgam attack was significant because of its “extreme barbarity… with victims mostly killed with head shots… and in front of their family”. He also said the attack was meant to disrupt the return of normalcy to Jammu and Kashmir, post the scrapping of Article 370 (which gave the former state special status) in August 2019.
The presser included statements from two women officers – Colonel Sofiya Qureshi from the Army and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh from the Air Force – who highlighted the links between the targets and Pak-based terrorist groups, as well as their attacks on India.
One of these camps, Col Qureshi said, was in Muridke, which is 40km north of Lahore.
Muridke housed a Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist training base that trained Ajmal Kasab and David Headley, the terrorists behind the 26/11 Mumbai attacks in which over 150 people were killed.
An offshoot of Lashkar, calling itself The Resistance Front, had claimed responsibility for the Pahalgam attack, in which 25 Indians and a Nepali, most of whom were civilians were killed.
Among the other terror camps targeted was Bahawalpur in Pak’s Punjab province, which was the nerve centre of the Jaish-e-Mohammed terror group responsible for the 2019 Pulwama attack, in which 40 Indian soldiers were killed, and the attack on Army base in Uri in 2016.
The group had also claimed the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament.
The Sawai Nala camp in Pak’s Muzaffarabad area and the Syedna Bilal camp in Pak-occupied Kashmir, or PoK, were known terror bases for the Lashkar and the Jaish groups.
Another in Gulpur had launched terrorists in 2023 and 2024, when there were a spate of targeted civilian killings across Jammu and Kashmir in the Rajouri and Poonch sectors.
The other targets included one camp in Sarjal and another in Barnala, both of which were known to train terrorists for cross-border infiltration, and a third in Mehmoona near Sialkot.
The latter, the officers said, was used by the Hizbul Mujahideen.
These military strikes were designed to ” deliver justice to the victims of the Pahalgam terror attack and their families”, Wing Commander Singh told the press, explaining the terror camps were also selected to avoid damage to civilian infrastructures and loss of civilian lives.
