Indian military carried out "measured, non-escalatory" strike to deter any further attacks: FS Misri

New Delhi: Indian military carried out a "measured, non-escalatory, proportionate, and responsible" strike to dismantle terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan to "deter and to pre-empt" any further terrorist strikes, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said, hours after India retaliated the Pahalgam attack. Addressing a packed press conference here, Misri said it was deemed essential that the perpetrators and planners of the April 22 attack be brought to justice as there was "no demonstrable" step from Islamabad to take action against the terror infrastructure on its territory or on territory under its control. "Our intelligence monitoring of Pakistan-based terrorist modules indicated that further attacks against India were impending," he said at the briefing, which was also addressed by Col. Sofia Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh.

The foreign secretary's comments came hours after India struck nine terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied-Kashmir with missiles and drones under an operation christened 'Operation Sindoor'. Misri said there was a compulsion both to "deter and to pre-empt". "Earlier this morning as you would be aware India exercised its right to respond and pre-empt as well as deter more such cross-border attacks," he said. "These actions were measured, non-escalatory, proportionate, and responsible. They focused on dismantling the terrorist infrastructure and disabling terrorists likely to be sent across to India," Misri said. The foreign secretary said despite a fortnight having passed since the Pahalgam attacks, there has been "no demonstrable step" from Pakistan to take action against the terrorist infrastructure on its territory or on territory under its control. On the Pahalgam attack, Misri said Pakistani and Pakistan-trained terrorists belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out the savage strike on Indian tourists and murdered 26 people. It was the largest number of civilian casualties in a terrorist attack in India since the November 26, 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. "The attack in Pahalgam was marked by extreme barbarity, with the victims mostly killed with headshots from close range and in front of their families," he said. "Family members were deliberately traumatised through the manner of the killing, accompanied by the exhortation that they should take back the message," Misri said.

The foreign secretary said the Pahalgam attack was "clearly driven by the objective of undermining the normalcy returning" to Jammu and Kashmir. "In particular, it was designed to impact the mainstay of the economy, tourism, with a record 23 million tourists visiting the valley last year," he said. "The calculation, presumably, was that harming growth and development in the Union Territory would help keep it backward and create fertile ground for continued cross-border terrorism from Pakistan," he said. Misri noted that 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," he said. Citing cross-border linkages to the attack, he pointed towards a so called group calling itself "The Resistance Front" (TRF) claimed responsibility for the attack. "This group is a front for the UN-proscribed Pakistani terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba," he said. "It is notable that India had given inputs about the TRF in the half-yearly report to the monitoring team of the UN's 1267 Sanctions Committee in May and November 2024, bringing out its role as a cover for Pakistan-based terrorist groups," he added. Misri said "identification of the attackers based on eyewitness accounts, as well as other information available to law enforcement agencies, has also progressed." "Our intelligence has developed an accurate picture of the planners and backers of this team," he added.