Very moving moment: Shashi Tharoor as he pays tributes at 9/11 memorial in US
Congress MP Shashi Tharoor and his delegates paid their tributes to the victims at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum following their arrival in the US as part of their outreach to brief selected countries on Operation Sindoor and India's fight against terrorism. Tharoor, who is leading the delegation, said it was a very "moving moment" on visiting the memorial and called for a global united fight against terrorism.advertisementTharoor paid his respects at the memorial along with MP Ganti Harish Madhur, MP Shashank Mani Tripathi, MP Bhubaneswar Kalita, MP Milind Deora and former Ambassador Taranjit Singh Sandhu. They were accompanied by India's Ambassador to the US, Vinay Mohan Kwatra, news agency ANI reported.The members paid tributes by offering white roses at the memorial and folding their hands in obeisance.
According to its official website, the 9/11 Memorial is a tribute of remembrance, honouring the 2,977 people killed in the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Centre site, near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and at the Pentagon, as well as the six people killed in the World Trade Centre bombing on February 26, 1993.The memorial is located on eight acres of the 16-acre World Trade Centre complex. advertisementAfter visiting the memorial, Tharoor said, "It was obviously a very moving moment for us, but it was also meant to send a very strong message that we are here in a city which is still bearing the scars of that savage terrorist attack in the wake of yet another terrorist attack in our own country. We came both as a reminder that this is a shared problem, but also out of a spirit of solidarity with the victims, who included Indians. It is a global problem. We must fight it unitedly."He said the Pahalgam attackers should be brought to justice."We are not going to stop our hunt for those who committed this latest atrocity (Pahalgam terror attack). But, we need to think about where these people are based, where they have safe havens, where they are trained, equipped, financed and guided to perpetrate this horror," he said.The former diplomat-turned-politician said it was a reminder of the solidarity that all people around the world feel in the face of terrorism. "It is a reminder sadly that we ourselves in India have been subject to the same wounds. We have come in a spirit of solidarity," he added.Earlier on Saturday, the delegation arrived at the John F Kennedy International Airport in New York to pay homage at the 9/11 memorial. The group will also travel to Guyana, Panama, Brazil and Colombia before returning to the US again to articulate India's battle against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and Operation Sindoor.advertisementApart from Tharoor, the delegation comprises Shambhavi Chaudhary (Lok Janshakti Party), Sarfaraz Ahmed (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha), GM Harish Balayagi (Telugu Desam Party), Shashank Mani Tripathi, Tejaswi Surya, Bhubaneswar K Lata (all from BJP), Mallikarjun Devda (Shiv Sena) and former Indian Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu. Six more delegations are headed to other countries in a similar exercise.In the early hours of May 7, the Indian armed forces targeted nine terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir under Operation Sindoor, killing 100 terrorists. In response, Pakistan resorted to heavy shelling, sending a barrage of drones and missiles in civilian areas and military installations across border towns, but all of them were repelled by the Indian air defence system.India then launched a fierce counter-attack on Pakistani airbases, destroying them, before the nuclear-armed neighbours agreed to cease all military action on May 10.(with inputs from ANI)Must Watch
IN THIS STORY#Shashi Tharoor#India-Pakistan#United States of America#Operation Sindoor
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