Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri with Army’s Col Sofiya Qureshi and IAF Wing Commander Vyomika Singh during a press conference regarding ‘Operation Sindoor’, in New Delhi, Wednesday, May 7, 2025. Indian armed forces carried out missile strikes on terror targets in Pakistan and PoK under ‘Operation Sindoor’, in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack.
| Photo Credit:
PTI
India struck 9 terrorist camps inside Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) to dismantle infrastructure belonging to terror groups Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Hizbul Mujahideen to avenge the massacre of 26 tourists in the April 22 Pahalgam attack.
At a press briefing addressed by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, along with two women armed forces officers — Indian Army’s Colonel Sofiya Quereshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh of the Air Force — footage of strikes across the border on the terror camps in Pakistan and PoJK was presented. Satellite imagery and pictorial descriptions of 21 terrorist camps in the PoJK and Pakistan were also revealed to the journalists.
Midnight strike
Between well past 12 and 1.30 am early on Wednesday morning, the Indian Air Force in co-ordination with the Army, executed the attacks without intruding into the Pakistan air space, unlike the two previous counter strikes carried out after the terror attacks on Indian Army Brigade headquarters in Uri in 2016 and CRPF convoy in Pulwama in 2019.
Army sources clarified that missiles were only fired by IAF jets.
Col. Quereshi said that 9 terrorist camps of Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Hizbul Mujahideen were selected based on credible intelligence inputs and targeted to deliver justice to the victims of the Pahalgam terror attack and their families.
Of them, five were in PoJK — Sawai Nala Camp and Syedna Belal Camp (both in Muzaffarabad); Gulpur Camp and Abbas Camp (both in Kotli); and Barnala Camp in Bhimber.
The remaining four were in Pakistan — Sarjal Camp and Mehmoona Joya Camp (both in Sialkot); Markaz Taiba in Muridke and Markaz Subhan camp in Bahawalpur.
Col. Quereshi said: “The strike on terror camps was undertaken through precision capability, using niche technology weapons with careful selection of warheads that ensured no collateral damage.”
India asserted that the aerial assault was necessitated by the terror attacks planned and executed from across the border, and Pakistan’s failure to take concrete action to dismantle terror infrastructure on its soil. Also, India apprehended more such terror strikes.
Pre-emptive action
“Intelligence and monitoring of Pakistan-based terror modules indicated that further attacks against India were impending, therefore, it was necessary to take pre-emptive and precautionary strikes,” the Foreign Secretary said, giving details of the strikes code-named ‘Operation Sindoor’.
Misri, however, did not take any questions on the operation, saying the “situation was evolving”. He also did not give any information about whether Pakistan has responded to India’s military action.
Pakistan claimed that the Indian strikes took at least the lives of 21 civilians. Pakistan’s military spokesperson and Director General of ISPR, Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, said that they have been hit by Indian missile strikes at different mosques.
Indian officers, however, asserted that no military buildings were targeted or that there was any collateral damage.
Pakistan has retaliated by pounding villages close to the Line of Control and the International Border on this side of the fence, with hundreds of residents being evacuated to safer zones.
More than 12 persons, including four children and two women, were killed and over 50 injured when the Pakistan army fired artillery and mortar shells in villages of Poonch and Rajouri in Jammu region and Baramulla and Kupwara in north Kashmir, said local officials.
India insisted that it had previously given proof, at the international fora, including the UN, of Pakistan orchestrating a proxy war in India through known proscribed terrorist outfits and their frontal organisations, the Foreign Secretary said.
India simultaneously briefed leading nations like the US and Russia on the strikes.
Reacting to the Indian strike, US President Donald Trump called it a shame and hoped that it would end “very quickly.”
“It’s a shame, we just heard about it,” Trump said to reporters at the White House. “I guess people knew something was going to happen based on a little bit of the past. They’ve been fighting for a long time,” he added.
But China dubbed the strikes as “regrettable.”
“China finds India’s military operation early this morning regrettable. We are concerned about the ongoing situation. India and Pakistan are and will always be each other’s neighbours,” the Chinese foreign ministry said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is said to have hailed the armed forces during the Union Cabinet meeting on Wednesday afternoon.
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Published on May 7, 2025