Soon after India conducted strikes targeting terrorist infrastructure at nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) under Operation Sindoor, National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval reached out to his counterparts in the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, and several Gulf nations to brief them on India’s actions, ANI reported, citing sources.
According to the report, Doval informed the foreign officials that the operation was a carefully calibrated, non-escalatory response to the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, in which 26 civilians, including 25 Indians and one Nepali national, were killed.
The Indian strikes specifically targeted terrorist camps functioning as recruitment centres, indoctrination hubs, launchpads, and weapons training facilities operated by groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).
Doval’s conversations included discussions with US NSA and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, UK NSA Jonathan Powell, Saudi NSA Musaid Al Aiban, UAE NSA Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed and Ali Al Shamsi, Secretary General of the UAE National Security Council, as well as Japanese NSA Masataka Okano. Contact was also established with Russian NSA Sergei Shoigu, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, and Emmanuel Bonne, diplomatic adviser to French President Emmanuel Macron.
Doval briefed them on the nature and execution of the operation, emphasising that India had no intention of escalating the situation further, but would respond firmly if provoked. He underlined that the airstrikes were intended to deter future attacks by dismantling the infrastructure that enables cross-border terrorism.
A day earlier, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spoken separately with the national security advisors of both India and Pakistan, urging both sides to keep communication channels open and avoid any escalation.
At a joint press briefing in New Delhi on Wednesday, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri reiterated that India’s response was based on credible intelligence and designed to be precise and proportionate. “Our intelligence indicated that further attacks against India were impending. Thus, compulsion, both to deter and prevent and hence earlier this morning, India exercised its right to respond to deter such more cross-border terrorism… Our actions were measured and non-escalatory, proportionate and responsible. They focused on dismantling terrorists’ infrastructure,” Misri said.
He described the April 22 Pahalgam attack as marked by “extreme barbarity,” with victims executed by headshots at close range and often in front of their families.
“The family members were deliberately traumatised through the manner of killing, accompanied by exhortations to take the message back. The attack was clearly driven by the objective of undermining normalcy returning to Kashmir,” Misri said.
(With ANI inputs)