Operation Sindoor: Did India mean to send a message to China too? Shashi Tharoor responds
Shashi Tharoor in Washington.
Congress MP
Shashi Tharoor
, who is in US leading an all-party delegation on
Operation Sindoor
executed by the military, on Wednesday (local time) reflected on the Chinese 'kill chain' deployed by Pakistan.
Interacting with reporters in Washington, Tharoor was asked if India's military action against Pakistan had a message for China.
"The fact that they (Pakistan) were using Chinese weapons and we were bypassing some of the Chinese radar defences, and the famous sort of Chinese network system.
.. it all comes, and that's supposed to be the great sort of Chinese 'kill chain' we read about in the newspapers. When India decided to bypass some of those threats and hit the airfields, I don't think they're worrying about who gets the message. They want to make sure that the Pakistanis got the message, and they got the rough end of what we were sending them, which they did...
I do believe that what happened on the night of the 9th and 10th (May) speaks for itself, and even more so, the immediate reaction of Pakistan the next morning to call off the conflict also speaks very vividly for itself, and maybe that's the message the Chinese will have to look at."
He criticised Pakistan's targeting of civilian areas following India's strikes on nine bases belonging to terror organisations listed by the United Nations Terrorism Sanctions Committee, the 1267 Committee's designated terrorists.
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At the National Press Club in the US on Wednesday (local time), Tharoor described the terrorist attack in
Jammu and Kashmir
's Pahalgam as distressing and disruptive to India's growth trajectory. He noted the significant tourism growth in Kashmir, surpassing visitor numbers to Aspen, Colorado in the previous summer.
He said, "In fact, in Kashmir, it's very striking that the previous summer we've seen more tourism and more tourists coming than Aspen, Colorado gets every year.
And in the course of this year, the first few months of this year, there's been a 100 per cent increase on the corresponding months of last year. So Kashmir was booming ordinary, Kashmiris are benefiting from vast numbers of tourists coming in, putting money into their hands and their pockets.
It was a lovely time and here's this innocent group of holidays, tourists on a dappled meadow in Kashmir being murdered in cold blood by people coming and asking their religion and shooting them between the eyes."
The Indian Armed Forces initiated Operation Sindoor on May 7 in response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack by Pakistan-sponsored terrorists, which resulted in 26 casualties and numerous injuries.
The operation targeted terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, eliminating over 100 terrorists from organisations including Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and Hizbul Mujahideen. Following subsequent Pakistani aggression, Indian Forces responded by targeting their airbases. Both nations agreed to cease hostilities on May 10.
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