'India sent clear message that it was not going...': Shashi Tharoor shares India's response to Pahalgam attack

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday (local time) highlighted how India responded in a measured and calibrated manner towards terror bases and headquarters in Pakistan, following the dastardly Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 people were killed. 

He gave a call for the world to come together to fight unitedly against terrorism. Delivering the remarks at the Indian Consulate, Tharoor noted the visit by the members of the all-party delegation to the 9/11 Memorial was their first stop. He 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 bearing still the scars of that savage terrorist attack in the wake of yet another terrorist attack in our own country."

Tharoor said, "We came both as a reminder that this is a shared problem, but also out of a spirit of solidarity with the victims... It's a global problem, it's a scourge and we must all fight it unitedly."

Speaking about the aim of the visit of the all-party delegation, Tharoor said, "Our idea is very much to speak to a cross section of public and political opinion in each of the countries we're going to about recent events which obviously trouble a number of people around the world. The fundamental underlying problem remains and it's important that we try and enlarge your understanding of our thinking and our concern about what's going on."

"So it's for us an opportunity we will be in every country, meeting members of the executive, meeting members of the legislature, meeting big tankers and influential foreign policy experts, and at the same time interacting with the media and public opinion in every one of these places."

Describing the dastardly Pahalgam terror attack, Tharoor said, "It was a bunch of people going around identifying the religions of the people before them and killing them on that basis, which was clearly intended to provoke a backlash in the rest of India, since the victims were overwhelmingly Hindu."

He gave various examples from the Indian society of how in Jammu and Kashmir from politicians to civilians, people came together in solidarity. "There was an extraordinary amount of togetherness cutting across religious and other divides that people have tried to provoke. The message is very clear that there was a malign intent... India, sadly, had no reason to doubt where it came from."

Describing further details, Tharoor mentioned, "Within one hour of the atrocity, a group called the Resistance Front had claimed credit. The Resistance Front was known for some years to be a frontal organization of the proscribed Lashkar e Taiba, which is on the US, designated terrorist, as well, as well as the UN sanctions committees. And India had gone to the UN sanctions committee with information about the Resistance Front in 2023 and in 2024 and now sadly, it had acted in 2025 they repeated their claim the next day."

"Sadly Pakistan chose to follow its usual path of denial, in fact, Pakistan with the help of China succeeded in removing the reference to TRF from the press statement drafted in the Security Council of the UN two days later". 

Speaking about India's response in wake of the Pahalgam terror attack, Tharoor said, "I don't work for the government, as you know. I work for an opposition party, but I myself authored an op-ed in one of India's leading papers, within a couple of days saying that the time had come to hit hard and hit smart and I'm pleased to say that's exactly what India did."

He outlined how precise and calibrated strikes took place on "9 specific known terrorist bases, headquarters and launchpads. Those included those of the Lashkar-e-Taiba in Muridke, Jaish-e-Mohammad in Bahawalpur, responsible amongst other things for the murder of Daniel Pearl..."

Tharoor underscored that "India sent a clear message that it was not going to take terror lying down, it would answer, but equally that by delivering veryprecisely, calculated, calibrated strikes on very specific targets, it wa salso sending a message that this was not meant to be the opening salvo in a protracted war but just an act of retribution, that we were prepared to stop with that act". 

The all-party delegation led by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor comprises of Shambhavi Chaudhary (Lok Janshakti Party), Sarfaraz Ahmed (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha), G M 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.

The delegation will project India's national consensus and firm stance on combating terrorism in all its forms. They will carry India's strong message of zero tolerance against terrorism to the global community during their outreach. 

(This story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from ANI)