Operation Sindoor outreach | 'Our desire to be left alone not reciprocated by other side': Shashi Tharoor slams Pakistan for promoting terrorism

Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, leading an all-party delegation to Panama, delivered a scathing rebuke of Pakistan’s continued support for cross-border terrorism.

Speaking to the Indian community in Panama, Tharoor said, "Unfortunately, our desire to just be left alone is not reciprocated by our friends on the other side of the border. They have chosen repeatedly to attack us because they believe that they want territory which they do not control, which we control. It is part of the sovereign borders of the United Indian, and we are not going to give it to them even if we have to pay the price that we have repeatedly been paid. "

He also said that though the leaders come from different political backgrounds, they all stand ‘united in national purpose’.

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Addressing the Panama assembly President Dana Castaneda and some select parliamentarians, Tharoor stressed that India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7 only after it waited to see if the Pakistani government would take any action against the perpetrators of the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack.

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"When nothing was clearly being done, two weeks later, on the 7th of May, we attacked the known headquarters of terrorist bases inside Pakistan. We had no interest in starting a war, but we felt that a terrorist act must not go unpunished," he said.

Tharoor underlined that India has suffered attack after attack for almost 40 years and that it is not acceptable to continue to bear the pain.

"We have suffered attack after attack for almost four decades now. Going back from the first attacks in Kashmir in 1989 onwards, we have seen repeated outrageous civilian victims," Tharoor said.

"It is just not acceptable for us to continue to bear the pain, the grief, the wounds, the losses, and then merely go and tell the international community, look what is happening to us. Please help us. Please put pressure on the perpetrators to actually identify and prosecute the criminals," he added.

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Tharoor also highlighted India's changed shift in strategy in dealing with the terrorists, giving examples of Uri and Balakot air strikes.

"What has changed in recent years is that the terrorists have also realised they will have a price to pay, on that, let there be no doubt. When, for the first time, India crossed the Line of Control between India and Pakistan to conduct a surgical strike on a terror base, a launch pad - the Uri strike in September 2016. That was already something we had not done before. Even during the Kargil War, we had not crossed the Line of Control; in Uri, we did, and then came the attack in Pulwama in 2019. This time, we crossed not only the Line of Control but also the international border, and we hit the terrorist headquarters in Balakot. This time, we have gone beyond both of those. We have not only gone beyond the Line of Control and the international border. We have struck at the Punjabi heartland of Pakistan by hitting terror camps, training centres, terror headquarters in nine locations," Tharoor said.

Tharoor pinned down on the necessity of Operation Sindoor following Pahalgam terror attack and said,

"Some women cried out The terrorists killed me too, and they said, 'No, go back, tell what happened to you. We heard, we heard their cries and India decided that the colour of the Sindoor, the vermilion colour on the forehead of our women, will also match the colour of the blood of the killers, the perpetrators, the attackers..."

"Our Prime Minister has made it very clear Operation Sindoor was necessary because these terrorists came and wiped the Sindoor off the foreheads of 26 women by depriving them of their husbands and fathers, their married lives..." he added.

A moment of silence was also observed in memory of the innocent civilians killed in Pahalgam terror attack by Tharoor-led delegation along with members of the Indian community at the Sociedad Hindostana de Panama.

The all party delegation led by Tharoor arrived in Panama City for a three-day official visit after concluding their visit to Guyana.