'Informed Pakistan only after we hit them:' MEA dismisses speculations over Jaishankar's remarks

Indian foreign ministry on Thursday (May 22) addressed a major controversy over minister S Jaishankar’s earlier remarks on Operation Sindoor and clarified that India informed Pakistan “after” the strikes on terror hideouts were launched.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said during a weekly presser that Pakistan was informed through the “Director General Military Operation channel” after India hit the terror sites. He clarified that the information was conveyed only after confirmation of the strikes.

Earlier, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi had criticised Jaishankar and alleged that the government of India informed Islamabad in advance about the impending strikes on terrorist infrastructure, citing a statement from the foreign minister.

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“Informing Pakistan at the start of our attack was a crime. EAM has publicly admitted that GOI did it. Who authorised it? How many aircraft did our air force lose as a result?” Gandhi said in a post on X.

Gandhi cited a clip of Jaishankar in which the foreign minister said, “At the start of the operation, we had sent a message to Pakistan, saying, ‘We are striking at terrorist infrastructure and we are not striking at the military.’ So the military has the option of standing out and not interfering in this process. They chose not to take that good advice.”

However, soon after Gandhi’s remarks, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) last week stressed that Jaishankar’s remarks were “misrepresented”.

“EAM Jaishankar had stated that we had warned Pakistan at the start, which is clearly the early phase after Op Sindoor’s commencement. This is being falsely represented as being before the commencement. This utter misrepresentation of facts is being called out,” the External Publicity division of the MEA said in a statement.

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The Press Information Bureau’s Fact Check Unit also issued a clarification, saying Jaishankar “has not made any such statement” and is being “misquoted.”

Operation Sindoor , launched by the Indian Armed Forces on May 7, 2025, targeted terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. The operation was a response to the April 22, 2025, Pahalgam terror attack, which killed 25 Indian civilians and one Nepali citizen.