India strongly warned Pakistan on Thursday in plain language that any move to escalate already heightened tension would be responded to with a firm and suitable response.
And now if Pakistan ever tries again to raise altitude of tension, it will be confronted right where the altitude has to be addressed, and the decision is now entirely Pakistan's to take, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri stated at a media briefing in New Delhi, referring to recent events since Operation Sindoor.
Misri also mocked Pakistani propaganda efforts to rope fabricate news following recent gruesome terrorism in Pahalgam, adding that the "original escalation" had been fabricated from actions by Pakistan on April 22 and the actions by the India military are coercive response to that.
He dismissed the reports that India targeted the dam on the river in Kashmir occupied by Pakistan as "starkly fabricated and a lie." He added, "India has only attacked after along the Nala border; terror infrastructure. If you are attempting to use this as an excuse to attack Indian infrastructure of the same type there, then Pakistan will be completely responsible for the outcome that surely will follow."
India again brought to light the reporting of Pakistan's baseless assertions on India's alleged objection (on June 26, 2023) to the UN pressure to remove the name of TRF from the UN Security Council consideration of April 25, 2023 on "Twice, the TRF not only took credit for the attack but claimed the attack that was carried out (at Pahalgam) on April 22, 2023. First, they took credit live when they conducted the attack on April 22 - and then a second time, took responsibility for the Pahalgam attack on April 23. Perhaps now, after the magnanimity of the incident had finally permeated into their handlers, they had been pressured to reverse their acknowledgment and claim responsibility for the attack. Apparently, there is no one embracing that reversal." [Misri] stated.
The TRF – which once accepted responsibility for the Pahalgam massacre – allegedly does not actually exist in and of itself as a terror group, but instead is merely being used as a front by the Pakistan-based terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba (who are on UN terror lists themselves, by the way, as semantics do matter). Indian officials suggested that they have collected information on TRF's operations as fronts to report to the UN 1267 Sanctions Committee's Monitoring Team as early as May and November 2024, and labeled as fronts to globally proscribed organization.
It responded to the threats of similar action in December 2023 by the same UN agency that admitted it was not monitoring groups like LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammad when it placed the TRF under sub-groups.
Misri also referenced the historic position of Pakistan as being a "hub of terrorism." "I don't have to tell you where Osama Bin Laden was or who referred to him as a martyr. And there are countless numbers of UN-designated terrorists in Pakistan and there are countless numbers of designated extra-territorial terrorists. And I'm confident you noticed, just last week, the Defence Minister and the Foreign Minister of the UK received their country's interaction with such terror groups," Misri concluded.
Earlier on Thursday, the Indian Defence Forces had launched surgical strikes and targeted the key Air Defence Radars and no from machinery at some of the posts in Pakistan, the defence ministry stated, it was legitimate response by Indian army counter-retaliation to the place and scale of the attacks by Pakistan, the defence ministry stated.
"Indian action has followed the same trajectory with the same degree of intensity as Pakistan. It has been stressed time and again now, that an Air Defence facility at Lahore has now been neutralised," the ministry stated.
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