Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday chaired a top meeting to review border security, hours before the Indian and Pakistani directors general of military operations spoke over hotline to discuss steps to uphold the May 10 understanding to stop military actions against each other, officials said.
He later addressed the nation too.
“We have only paused our retaliatory action against terror and military bases in Pakistan. In the coming days, every step taken by Pakistan will be monitored … .any terror attack will get a befitting response, on our terms, in our way,” Modi said in his address to the nation.
The meeting was attended by defence minister Rajnath Singh, external affairs minister S Jaishankar, national security adviser Ajit Doval, chief of defence staff General Anil Chauhan, the three service chiefs and the foreign secretary.
The PM has been chairing meetings with top government functionaries since the beginning of Operation Sindoor on May 7; New Delhi’s direct military response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror strike that killed 26 people, the officials said.
The so-called May 10 ceasefire came at a critical moment as the two nuclear-armed neighbours were on the brink of a full-blown war following four days of military confrontation involving fighter jets, missiles, precision weapons, kamikaze drones and artillery guns.
In the address to the nation later in the evening, Modi said that the cessation of hostilities, announced on Saturday, came about after Pakistan was decimated militarily and came begging for a ceasefire. But he categorically stated that Operation Sindoor was not yet over.
He said any talks with Pakistan will focus on terrorism and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
On Sunday, army chief General Upendra Dwivedi granted full authority to his Army Commanders for counteraction in the kinetic domain to any violation of the May 10 understanding.
India’s military bases and systems are fully operational, and ready to undertake any mission, top officials said on Monday.
Operation Sindoor began in the early hours of May 7 with India achieving its intended target; it hit nine terror training camps in Pakistan and PoK, the precision strikes killing more than 100 terrorists in just 26 minutes.
“The Pakistani Army, the government of Pakistan…the way they continue to nurture terrorism, one day it will lead to their own destruction,” Modi said in his 22-minute address.
This is not an era of war, but not of terrorism either, he said.
“Pakistan had prepared to strike at our borders, but India hit them right at their core.”
Issues discussed at the DGMO talks meeting included continuing the May 10 commitment that both sides “must not fire a single shot” or initiate any aggressive or inimical action against each other, the army said on Monday.
“It was also agreed that both sides consider immediate measures to ensure troop reduction from the borders and forward areas,” the army said in a statement.
The Pakistan Army, however, violated the agreement with hours on Saturday.
“Disappointingly and should I add expectedly, it took only a couple of hours for the Pakistan Army to violate these arrangements by cross-border and LoC (Line of Control) firing followed by drone intrusions across the expanse of the western front through Saturday night and in the early hours of Sunday,” Indian Army DGMO Lieutenant General Rajiv Ghai said on Sunday at a special press briefing on Operation Sindoor.