Operation Sindoor Conceptualised To Punish Perpetrators And Planners of Terror: DGMO | Read Full Text

You are by now all too familiar with the brutality and the dastardly manner in which 26 innocent lives were prematurely terminated at Pahalgam on 22 Apr 25. When you combine those horrific scenes and the pain of the families that the Nation witnessed, with numerous other recent terrorist strikes on our Armed Forces and defenceless civilians over the last two years, we knew that the time had arrived to make yet another compelling statement of our resolve as a Nation. Op SINDOOR was conceptualised with a clear military aim to punish the perpetrators and planners of terror and to destroy their terror infrastructure. What I do not state here is the often stated determination of India and its intolerance to terror.

It set into motion a very diligent and microscopic scouring of the terror landscape across the borders and the identification of terror camps and training sites. The numbers that emerged were numerous but as we deliberated more, we realised that some of these terror hubs and locations were now bereft of any presence and had pre-emptively been vacated fearing retribution from us. There was also a term of reference and our own binding, self-imposed restriction to target only terrorists and thus, prevent collateral damage. There were nine camps that you are now all familiar with, which were confirmed by various agencies, to be inhabited. Some of these were in POJK while other were located in the Punjab Province in Pakistan. Nefarious places such as Muridke, the hub centre of LeT have bred infamous characters such as Ajmal Kasab and David Headley.

What followed was a careful scrutiny of these sinister locations, their layout, configuration, even the type of construction in each structure and the terrain obtained around. This was with an obvious intent to deduce the exact vector that was required for their neutralization as also the ‘eyes in the sky’ that we would send up to ensure that we brought back evidence that we had indeed targeted what we had set out to. The precise images of these engagements on that fateful and historical night have already been showcased during the first press statement on 07 May that was helmed by our Foreign Secretary. I have no doubt in my mind that we achieved total surprise and those strikes across these nine terror hubs left more than 100 terrorists killed including high value targets such as Yusuf Azhar, Abdul Malik Rauf and Muddasir Ahmed, that were involved in the hijack of IC 814 and the Pulwama blast. The line of Control was also violated soon after by Pakistan and the erratic and rattled response of our enemy was apparent from the number of civilians, inhabited villages and religious sites such as Gurudwaras that were unfortunately hit by them leading the sad loss of lives. The IAF played a major part in these strikes by engaging some of these camps and the IN provided wherewithal in terms of precision munitions. The IAF obviously had their assets up in the sky and I will here request Air Marshal Bharti, DGAO to detail for you the methodology that the Men in Blue adopted to successfully manifest this mission.
Being well aware and familiar with the congenital and impulsive nature of our adversary and even though we did attempt to reach out and communicate our compulsions to strike at the heart of terror, to my counterpart in the immediate wake of Op SINDOOR, the request was brusquely turned down with an intimation that a severe response was inevitable and in the offing. We were prepared and on the night of 08/09 May 25, they flew drones (SLIDE) and aircrafts into our airspace all across the borders and made largely unsuccessful attempts to target numerous military infrastructure. Violations on the Line of Control by Pak also commenced again and precipitated into fierce Arty engagements. The Air Operations over the night will be outlined by DGAO.
We also undertook certain measures such as deployment of Air Defence and Electronic Warfare assets to establish an integrated grid withthe Indian Air Force and I have seen some of you wax eloquent about the benefits of such an architecture when it comes to negating and combatting air intrusions. We also carried out deployment to include movement of our forces in the land, sea and air domain.
The night of 09/10 May saw similar intrusions by drones and aircrafts and this time there was a concerted and intense effort to target airfields and some very important logistic installations, albeit yet again unsuccessful and denied gallantly and efficiently, I must say, by the integrated IAF and IA Air Defence. We further strengthened our deployment and also initiated some pressure points to send a very clear and unambiguous message to the other side to desist from any misadventure on land. Some of the airfields and dumps saw repeated attacks in waves from the air, all were thwarted. The Pak Army has been reported to have lost approximately 35-40 personnel in Artillery and Small Arms firing on the Line of Control between 07-10 May 2025. What the other side had probably not factored in was the speedy and precise turn around and hit-back by the IAF and I will yet again ask Air Marshal Bharti to speak about these significant and game changing strikes. I will also request Vice Admiral Pramod, DGNO to tell us about some very telling Naval Maneuvers in the Arabian Sea to exert pressure on the night of 09/10 May.
On 10 May 2025, even as we were getting into a huddle to wargame the events of the previous night, I received a message on hotline from my counterpart in Pakistan seeking my willingness to communicate. Since our initial aim was to strike at terror camps and all our actions in the subsequent days were in response to the intrusions and violations by the PAF and Pak Army, it was decided that I would indeed speak with the Pak DGMO.
You are already aware that my communication with the Pak DGMO was conducted at 1535 Hr yesterday and resulted in cessation of cross border firing and air intrusions by either side wef 1700 Hr, 10 May 25 after he proposed that we cease hostilities. We also decided to further speak on 12 May at 1200 Hr to discuss the modalities that would enable the longevity of this Understanding. However, disappointingly and should I add expectedly, it took only a couple of hours for the Pak Army to violate these arrangements by cross border and LC firing followed by drone intrusions across the expanse of the Western Front, through last night and in the early hours of the morning today. These violations were responded to robustly and dealt with as they must be. We have earlier today sent across a hotline message to the Pak DGMO highlighting their violation of the Understanding between the DGSMO on 10 May 25 and our firm and clear intent to respond to these fiercely and punitively, if repeated tonight or later. In this regard, the COAS has earlier today conducted a security review and has granted full authority to Army Commanders for counter actions in the kinetic domain in case of any violation by Pakistan.

Source : https://www.timesnownews.com/india/operation-sindoor-conceptualised-to-punish-planners-of-terror-dgmo-read-full-text-article-151612613