Operation Sindoor | Pahalgam attack aimed at provoking communal discord but Centre, people foiled designs: Misri

New Delhi: One of the objectives of the Pakistani and Pakistan-trained terrorists, who carried out the April 22 carnage in Jammu and Kashmir, was to create communal discord in India, but the government and the people of the country foiled their design, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said on Wednesday.

“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,” Misri said, as he briefed the media-persons about Operation Sindoor, along with Wing Commander Vyomika Singh of the Indian Air Force and Colonel Sophia Qureshi of the Indian Army.

The Indian Army and the Indian Air Force targeted the terrorist camps both across the Line of Control between India and areas under control of Pakistan and across the undisputed stretch of the border between the two South Asian nations early on Wednesday – a fortnight after the terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir.

Twenty-five citizens of India and a citizen of Nepal were killed when Pakistani and Pakistan-trained terrorists sprayed bullets on them at Baisaran near Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir.

“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. Family members were deliberately traumatised through the manner of the killing, accompanied by the exhortation that they should take back the message,” Misri said, explaining the rationale of New Delhi’s decision to launch Operation Sindoor.

The 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. The calculation, presumably, was that harming growth and development in the Union Territory would help keep it underdeveloped and create fertile ground for continued cross-border terrorism from Pakistan, said the foreign secretary.

The terrorists asked for the religious identities of some of the victims before killing them. Some of the victims were asked to recite religious vows to ascertain their identities.