OPERATION SINDOOR NOT YET OVER,

IT IS NOW INDIA'S ESTABLISHED POLICY AGAINST TERRORISM

- By Jamila Husain

In an interview with the Daily Mirror in the wake of tension between India and Pakistan, Indian High Commissioner Santosh Jha warned that India would not treat another terror attack as a law-and-order issue, but as an act of war.

His comments were a clear signal that New Delhi's tolerance for cross-border terrorism has ended. He said that 'Operation Sindoor' is the established policy of India against terrorism

High Commissioner, could you tell us the reasons why India launched the recent military operation against Pakistan, called the 'Operation Sindoor'? Was it solely in response to Pahalgam attack? There have been many terrorist attacks in India earlier. Could you explain why India responded the way it did?

On 22 April, Pakistani and Pakistan-trained terrorists belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) murdered 26 tourists, 25 Indians and one from Nepal, in Pahalgam, Jammu & Kashmir, India. The victims were innocent tourists. Men were targeted, profiled on communal lines and shot at close range in front of their wives and children in one of the most barbaric and brutal terrorist attacks in history.

This was the biggest terrorist attack on civilians in India since the 26th November 2008 attacks in Mumbai. It should not be seen as just another terrorist attack in Kashmir. It was an attack not only on innocent civilians, but on the very essence of our country, its secular fabric and its developmental trajectory. The attack was aimed at spreading communal discord and to disrupt the sense of normalcy that had returned to the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir as reflected in the fact that over 23 million tourists had visited this most beautiful part of India in 2024. We also had intelligence reports that many more such attacks were on anvil.