‘Informing Pakistan at start of Operation Sindoor was a crime’: Rahul Gandhi questions S Jaishankar

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday questioned External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar for his remarks that India had informed Pakistan that it had targeted terrorist infrastructure on its soil after the April 22 Pahalgam attack.

Gandhi said it was a crime to inform Pakistan at the start of India’s attack, and claimed that Jaishankar had admitted that the Centre did so. The leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha asked who authorised the move to inform Pakistan about India’s operation, and sought to know how many aircraft the Indian Air Force lost as a result.

The Ministry of External Affairs, however, said that Gandhi’s statement was a “misrepresentation of facts”, The Indian Express reported.

Jaishankar, addressing reporters on Thursday, had said that India, at the start of the military operation earlier this month, had sent a message to Pakistan that it was targeting terrorist infrastructure, and not the Pakistani military.

“So the [Pakistani] military has an option of standing out and not interfering in this process,” Jaishankar said. “They chose not to take that good advice.”

The foreign minister was referring to a call made by India’s Director General of Military Operations Lieutenant General Rajiv Ghai to his Pakistani counterpart Major General Kashif Abdullah after the Indian military struck nine places in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir...

Read more