New India wants peace but will crush enemy if attacked: PM lauds soldiers

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday framed Operation Sindoor, the benchmark for a new national policy on terrorism, as a moral imperative and said wielding arms for the cause of ‘dharma’ was part of Indian traditions.

Addressing soldiers from Indian Air Force’s Adampur border base which Pakistan claimed to have destroyed in the recent conflict, the Prime Minister announced to the world that new India wanted peace but won’t sit idle if attacked. In a warning to Pakistan, Modi said India’s “Lakshman rekha against terrorism is now crystal clear”.

“We will answer terror attacks in our own way, on our own terms and at our own time; nuclear blackmail won’t be tolerated; we won’t differentiate between terror patronising governments and terror perpetrators,” the Prime Minister announced, detailing the revised three-pronged doctrine against terrorism. He said the world was now moving forward keeping India’s new policy on terrorism in mind.

Speaking from a dais that had the potent Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missile defence systems in the backdrop, the PM today declared that new Bharat wants peace but would raze the enemy to the ground if humanity is attacked. He saluted the armed forces and BSF personnel for conducting an “unprecedented, unimaginable, majestic” Operation Sindoor and achieving all the goals by striking nine terror hubs and killing over 100 terrorists in the heart of Pakistan.

The Prime Minister also told the soldiers that India had only paused actions against Pakistan after it pleaded and they should remain forever vigilant and ready for a response.

“Be forever ready to remind the adversary that this is new Bharat,” was the message to the forces.

Modi described Punjab, where the Adampur border air base stands, as a land of the brave, and invoked both Lord Buddha and Guru Gobind Singh to stress his line — “This is not the era of war, nor is this the era of terrorism.”

Reciting the 10th Sikh master Guru Gobind Singh’s verses, “Sava lakh se ek ladaun, chiryan teh main baaj tadaun, tab Gobind Singh naam kahaun”, the PM said to the soldiers: “Wielding weapons to restore ‘dharma’ is our tradition. In Pahalgam on April 22, the ‘sindoor’ of sisters and mothers was wiped out and we have crushed the fangs of the enemy by hitting him in his den.”

The Prime Minister also used the occasion to stress the nation’s military might saying Pakistan, despite repeated attempts, failed to even touch any Indian military installation. “But the Indian military proved that no place in Pakistan is safe for terrorists. ‘Hum ghar mein ghus kar marenge aur bachne kaa koi mauka bhi nahi denge (We will hit in their home and won’t give any chance of an escape). Pakistan will remain sleepless for days thinking of our drones and missiles,” the Prime Minister said to applause and chanting of ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ slogans.

In other significant remarks today, the PM spoke in highly salutary terms of the “speed, precision and coordination the IAF, Army and Navy exhibited during Operation Sindoor” and said “this joint-ness is now the identity of the Indian military which struck targets despite the Pakistani conspiracy of using civilian air traffic as a shield”.

Hailing the Indian forces for marrying tactics with technology and manpower with machines, the PM declared, “Pakistan cannot match the cutting-edge defence technology which India now has.” The reference was to a decade of investments in defence acquisitions and self-reliance under the BJP-led NDA rule.