India’s secret war in the skies over Pakistan last summer was neither the nuclear crisis that Washington now wants to project, nor the limited “surgical” exchange that Islamabad claims it has won on social media. It was a well-conceived, rigorous operation – codenamed Operation Sindoor – Designed to punish Pakistan-backed terrorism without waging war, and left the Pakistani military struggling to repair both solidity and credibility.
From Baisaran massacre to BrahMos reaction
As Shishir Gupta explains, the reason for this was the terrorist massacre that took place on April 22 at the Baisaran Valley tourist spot near Pahalgam, where Pakistan-backed terrorists separated the victims on the basis of religion and killed 26 people. India’s response was not symbolic: it was built around long-range precision strikes on terrorist structures inside Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
India opened its account on 7 May Brahmos Cruise missile attack on Jaish-e-Mohammed headquarters in Bahawalpur, coupled with a French SCALP air-launched cruise missile. The BrahMos were fired from Su‑30MKI, while the SCALP was fired from Rafale, both remaining in Indian airspace while carrying out stand-off strikes across the border.
The same night, Lashkar-e-Taiba’s Muridke headquarters was attacked using SCALP and Israeli Crystal Maze missiles, while other terror camps were targeted with stray weapons – Polish Warmet, Israeli PALM 200/400, Harop and Harpy. What began ostensibly as counter-terrorism retaliation was actually the initial phase of a limited air and missile war.
The night Pakistan went “blind”
The decisive attack took place on the morning of 10 May. At around 1:30 am, India launched the first strike of BrahMos missiles at Chaklala.Noor Khan Airbase in RawalpindiHome of Pakistan’s Northern Air Command. According to Gupta, the attack paralyzed the command-and-control network, effectively rendering Pakistan’s Northern Air Force “blind” and unable to see what was happening in its own skies.
By noon that day, India had used BrahMos 11 times, striking multiple air bases, with the last strikes being at Jacobabad and Bhanoti/Bhunari. In parallel, India brought its S‑400 air defense systems into action, and according to Gupta, 11 Pakistani air bases were significantly damaged, aircraft and other air platforms were destroyed on the ground and at least six to seven Pakistani aircraft were lost.
The scale and pace of these operations, supported by heavy use of American Excalibur precision artillery in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, forced Pakistan to evacuate up to 10 km in some forward areas due to the intensity of Indian shelling.
Who actually arranged the ceasefire?
In this background, US President Donald Trump has publicly claimed credit To prevent a possible nuclear war between India and Pakistan by establishing a ceasefire. Gupta’s reconstruction of the decision-making chain tells a very different story – one in which Washington was a concerned spectator, not a central arbiter.
On May 9, as tensions escalated and Pakistan prepared “Operation Bunyan al-Marsus”, US Vice President JD Vance called Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and warned of a major Pakistani retaliation. Modi’s reported response was clear: India will respond to a bullet with a bomb, says Gupta.
The next morning, as the BrahMos attacks came to light, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke to Secretary of State S. Repeated attempts were made to reach Jaishankar, who had just come out of the war room at 5 a.m. and was, as Gupta puts it, “apparently sleeping”. When the call finally connected around 8:45-9 am, Jaishankar clearly said that any discussion on the ceasefire should be done through military-to-military channels – specifically, between the Directors General of Military Operations (DGMOs) of India and Pakistan.
It was Pakistan’s DGMO who called his Indian counterpart to propose a ceasefire at around 3:35 that afternoon, when it became clear that India had achieved its limited war objectives. India accepted because its objectives – destroying key terrorist camps and weakening Pakistani air infrastructure – had been achieved; New Delhi was never seeking regime change or territorial gains.
The diplomatic turn came in the narrow window between the DGMO agreement and its formal internal communication. According to Gupta, Jaishankar directed Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri to inform the Army and other agencies about the ceasefire, but it took about two hours for the Army to ensure that all formations on the western front were properly informed.
Meanwhile, Islamabad rushed to tell Washington that India had agreed, and Trump, the “skilled tweeter”, woke up, tweeted the news and immediately claimed credit. According to Gupta’s statement, at no point did India ask the US to make peace, and at no point did nuclear escalation figure into the actual chain of decisions.
Narrative war: Pakistan’s pictures vs India’s evidence
If the dynamic of exchange tilted towards India, the information war played out differently. Gupta argues that Pakistan and its supporters took swift action to create the perception of victory – by trumpeting images of May 7 and its aftermath as if Indian property had been destroyed. Among the claims were that India’s S‑400 systems were destroyed at Adampur and Bhuj; Gupta says that those pictures were absolutely false, later the Prime Minister visited Adampur where S‑400 Remained intact.
Gupta compares this to India’s conservative, evidence-based approach to information, in which New Delhi prefers to downplay rather than over-dramatize its gains. In a world “where perception is bigger than reality”, Pakistan, supported by China and often joined by the US when the issue is India, has pushed its narrative more aggressively into the global resonance system.
At the same time, neither the US nor China has publicly acknowledged its losses or system failures in recent conflicts, be it the US-Iran confrontation or the display of Chinese-origin radar and weapons systems in Pakistan, Iran or Venezuela. Gupta suggests that this silence diverts international scrutiny towards Indian claims and away from Pakistani vulnerabilities.
Ceasefire, violations and political anger
If the decision to accept the ceasefire was military-inspired – because India did what it had to do – the political leadership in Delhi was not satisfied with how Pakistan behaved afterwards. Despite agreeing to stop, Pakistani forces continued firing using drones, artillery and cross-border shelling against targets in Jammu and Rajasthan on the night of 10 May.
India has formally accepted the ceasefire and has decided not to retaliate in keeping with its commitments, even if the other side reneges on them. This restraint angered some sections of the political establishment, says Gupta, who believed that India should have retaliated when Pakistan violated the repeatedly requested ceasefire.
Terror camps rebuilt, resistance reorganized
On the ground in Pakistan, the story after Operation Sindoor is one of reconstruction and renewed caution. Lashkar-e-Taiba’s Muridke headquarters and Jaish-e-Mohammed’s Markaz Subhanallah complex in Bahawalpur, both hit by Indian missiles, are visible with construction activity as they try to rebuild the destroyed portions. He says other camps are also being restored; The terror infrastructure targeting India remains “alive and active” because it is embedded in Pakistan’s state policy.
The difference, Gupta underlines, is one of deterrence: there is now a clear expectation in Rawalpindi that any fresh attack on Indian civilians will be met with a strong, cross-border response – summarized in the doctrine of “ghar mein ghus ke maarenge”, killing terrorists on their own soil. In his view, India neither needs external permission to do so, nor can it realistically be stopped by external powers once the decision is taken.
New arsenal: from drones to SSBNs
Operation Sindoor has also accelerated India’s military modernization, particularly in long-range and precision capabilities. In the year since operation, India has seen a contraction of roughly ₹Drone and counter-drone systems worth Rs 30,000 crore, strengthening both surveillance and kinetic options.
New Delhi is preparing to issue a letter of request to Dassault for 114 Rafale fighter aircraft under the “Make in India” framework to expand the SCALP strike fleet in May 2024. It has acquired the Israeli PULS rocket artillery system with a 300 km range, and large quantities of ammunition such as the Warmat 400, as a more economical complement to the expensive missiles.
In terms of air defense and strike, India has introduced the long-range surface-to-air Barak system from Israel and is exploring long-range variants of the BrahMos to extend its reach in the subcontinent. At sea, it quietly launched its third nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, INS Arihadman, on April 3, and plans to launch a fourth, INS Arisudan, next year – bolstering a survivable second-strike capability.
Add to this a steady stream of howitzers, tanks and light armour, and Gupta’s central point becomes clear: India’s goal is to maintain a decisive conventional edge over Pakistan, while also signaling to all regional adversaries that any “evil eye” on India will come with a price they cannot afford.
In his concluding remarks to anchor Ayesha Verma, Gupta offers a sober warning: Operation Sindoor, in his words, “is still not complete” – a reminder that for New Delhi, the campaign against cross-border terror is not a one-off retaliatory strike, but a long, unfinished project of deterrence through punishment.
