You woke up on May 10 to the headlines: Operation Bunyan Um Marsoos was underway. Less than two weeks earlier, on April 29, India had brazenly violated your country’s airspace and killed innocent civilians near Sialkot and Muzaffarabad. In the days that followed, you and millions of Pakistanis held your breath, hoping that New Delhi would acknowledge its wrongdoing and halt further provocations. But instead, Indian drones zipped across the border. Your air defences detected each one and shot them down before they could reach their targets.

Then came last night’s attempt on your air bases. Under the cover of darkness, Indian forces launched a missile and drone strike against Nur Khan, Shorkot, and Minhas airfields. You can imagine the tension as Pakistani radar lit up and scramble sirens wailed. Thanks to the Pakistan Air Force’s readiness and skill, the attack was foiled—every missile was intercepted, every drone shot down, and all PAF assets remained unscathed.

By dawn, Islamabad had decided it could no longer rely on reactive defense alone. You read the announcement: Operation Bunyan Um Marsoos—a name meaning “the solid, unbreakable structure”—would deliver Pakistan’s response “at a time and place of our choosing.” Within hours, the streets of Lahore,........

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