“बिनय न मानत जलधि जड़, गए तीनि दिन बीति। बोले राम सकोप तब, भय बिनु होइ न प्रीति।"

In this sacred verse of the Ramcharitmanas, we find a truth both eternal and elemental: that forbearance, though noble and enduring, when taken for granted or mistaken for weakness, transforms into a righteous and unrelenting force.

India has always drawn strength from its deep well of patience, but history warns that even the Himalayas erupt when provoked beyond limit. And so began a chapter in India’s destiny where dharma was no longer whispered but declared with fire.

On the fateful day of 22 April 2025, the serene and sacred valleys of Pahalgam were defiled by the blood of 26 innocent civilians; victims not of a war, but of a cowardly terrorist ambush. Across the length and breadth of India, grief rippled into resolve; the vermilion of our sorrow became the banner of our justice. Thus began Operation Sindoor, named for the sacred mark that terrorists sought to erase but which India now bore proudly — a promise etched in steel and fire.

In the hours following that atrocity, India’s Cabinet Committee on Security moved decisively: the suspension of the Indus Waters Treaty, the Attari checkpoint sealed with a 1 May deadline for stranded travellers, SAARC visa exemptions for Pakistani nationals revoked, and military attachés in New Delhi declared persona non grata.

With those diplomatic levers shifted, India signalled that no bloodletting on its soil would go unanswered. Intelligence agencies, weaving satellite imagery with intercepted communications and human networks, mapped out nine terror camps where JeM, LeT, and Hizbul Mujahideen cadres trained, indoctrinated, and plotted mayhem. Guided by unbreakable rules of engagement — no civilian targets, only confirmed terror infrastructure — our armed forces prepared to deliver retribution with surgical precision.

In the pre-dawn hours of 7 May, between 1:04 and 1:28 AM, Indian missiles cut through Pakistani skies; swift, precise, and unstoppable, long before the first vermilion streaks of sunrise touched the horizon. India’s indigenous BrahMos missiles roared with precision, turning Pakistan’s terror camps into smouldering ruins, killing hundreds of terrorists — a testament to our technological supremacy and strategic will. Munitions obliterated workshops of violence at Bahawalpur’s Markaz Subhan Allah, Muridke’s Markaz Taiba, Tehra Kalan’s Sarjal, Sialkot’s Mehmoona Joya, Barnala’s Markaz Ahle Hadith, Kotli’s Markaz Abbas and Maskar Raheel Shahid, Muzaffarabad’s Shawai Nalla and Syedna Bilal Camp. Each strike erased a nucleus of terror, striking at the ideological heartbeats that had sent killers across our border.

On 8 May, ignoring India’s clear warning against escalation, humiliated Pakistan launched drone strikes across 28 Indian border cities, including Amritsar and Srinagar, targeting civilian zones — all of which were intercepted mid-air with 100 per cent accuracy by made-in-India air defence systems like Akash batteries, Russian-made S-400, medium-range SAM Barak-8, older AD systems like Pechora missiles, low-level anti-aircraft guns, shoulder-fired precision interceptors, and a multi-layered air defence with indigenous integrated drone detection and interdiction systems. Not a single Pakistani drone managed to inflict harm. Every one of them was neutralised mid-air, intercepted with surgical precision. No civilian lives lost due to drones, no structures breached.

This isn’t just the triumph of radar and firepower; it is the triumph of discipline, of invisible sleepless eyes watching the skies. For those in Jammu, Pathankot, Akhnoor, Udhampur, and other cities who heard the shrill alarms and saw missiles arc into the night, this wasn’t a headline, it was hard-earned breath. What the rest of India reads as a statistic, the borderland citizens experience as survival. And behind that survival stands the unwavering brilliance of our Armed Forces, whose calm precision in chaos deserves not just our applause, but our awe.

India’s response was punishing: Pakistan’s HQ-9 air........

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