New Delhi:
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been constantly monitoring Operation Sindoor, in which armed forces carried out missile strikes early Wednesday on nine terror targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the Pahalgam massacre that resulted in the deaths of 26 people, sources said.
The targeted areas included Bahawalpur, which is a stronghold of the Jaish-e-Mohammad terror outfit.
The Ministry of Defence confirmed that nine specific terror targets were hit during the operation, including headquarters of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) in Bahawalpur and Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in Muridke.
According to government sources, the Prime Minister personally monitored real-time developments in New Delhi. He was briefed continuously by the Chief of Defence Staff, senior intelligence officers, and National Security Advisor Ajit Doval. Multiple rounds of communication were held between the Prime Minister and the chiefs of the Army, Navy and Air Force, beginning late Tuesday evening and extending through the early hours of Wednesday.
Operation Sindoor, sources said, was conceived and planned following an intelligence assessment conducted in the days following the Pahalgam attack. The Ministry of Defence, in a statement issued at 1:44 am, stated that the strikes were “focused, measured and non-escalatory.” It further said that Indian military assets had not targeted any Pakistani military installations, and that the strikes were exclusively directed at infrastructure used for the planning and execution of cross-border terrorist operations.
Officials said that the missile strikes hit five locations in Pakistan’s Punjab province – including Bahawalpur and Muridke – and four in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, namely Kotli, Muzaffarabad and Bagh.
Following the strikes, India initiated a diplomatic outreach to key global partners. Senior Indian officials contacted their counterparts in the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates to brief them about the operation.
The Defence Ministry also reiterated that India’s response was in line with its stated commitment to hold perpetrators of cross-border terrorism accountable.
