‘Will deliver a strong response’: Rajnath Singh calls Pahalgam terror attack ‘religiously-motivated’

“This extremely inhuman act has plunged all of us into deep grief and pain… I would like to reiterate India’s firm resolve that we have a zero tolerance policy against terrorism. Every citizen of India is united against this cowardly act,” he said while delivering the Arjan Singh Memorial Lecture in New Delhi.

“India is such an old civilisation and such a big country that it cannot be intimidated by any such terrorist activities. People responsible for such acts will get a strong response in the near future,” he said.

“History is witness to the withering away of nations not due to the action of the adversary, but due to the result of their own misdeeds. I hope people across the border look at lessons of history more closely,” he said.

Singh’s assurance came hours after he presided over a meeting attended by the Chief of Defence Staff, chiefs of the three Services, Defence Secretary and the Army’s Director General of Military Operations.

He is learnt to have sought enhanced combat readiness from the armed forces and asked them to carry out high intensity anti-terror operations.

Later in the evening, Singh attended a 2.5-hour-long meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who returned to New Delhi after cutting short his visit to Saudi Arabia.

“In the wake of the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, chaired a meeting of the CCS at 7, Lok Kalyan Marg,” PM Modi posted about the meeting on X, which was also attended by Home Minister Amit Shah, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, and Principal Secretaries to PM, PK Mishra and Shaktikanta Das, among others.

Sources say the government will also convene an all-party meeting on Thursday to convey the decisions taken at the CCS meet.

Shortly after his arrival early on Wednesday, Modi took stock of the situation at a meeting with NSA Doval, Jaishankar and Foreign Misri at the airport itself.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who is part of the CCS, besides Modi, Jaishankar, Singh and Home Minister Amit Shah, also cut short her official visit to the US-Peru.

“She is taking the earliest available flight back to India to be with our people in this difficult and tragic time,” her office said in a post on X.

On Wednesday, Shah visited the site of the attack and interacted with senior Army and police officers. He reached the Baisaran meadow in a helicopter and was briefed by officers.

Sources said he was told about the sequence of events and the possible routes the terrorists took to reach the popular tourist spot which is surrounded by thick pine forests.

Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police Nalin Prabhat and GoC of the Army’s 15 Corps Lieutenant General Prashant Srivastava were among the senior officers present at the site, around 110 km from Srinagar. Shah also took an aerial view of the area.

Attending a wreath-laying ceremony for the victims of the terror attack at the police control room in Srinagar, Shah said the country will not bend to terror and that those responsible for the killings will not be spared.

Accompanied by Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha and Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, Shah also visited Government Medical College (GMC) Hospital in Anantnag in the afternoon and met some of the injured admitted there.

After laying wreaths on the bodies of those killed in the attack, Shah, in a post on X, said, “With a heavy heart, paid last respects to the deceased of the Pahalgam terror attack. Bharat will not bend to terror. The culprits of this dastardly terror attack will not be spared.”

The Home Minister later interacted with families of those killed and survivors of the attack. He assured them that the security forces would leave no stone unturned to bring the perpetrators of the deadly attack to book.

In New Delhi, BJP sources said there are growing calls for retribution and the attack “perpetrators and actors behind the scenes” will be given “a befitting reply”.

Party sources underlined that the world was rallying behind India – from US President Donald Trump’s phone call to the Prime Minister to statements from Israel and even Taliban-ruled Afghanistan – and the government would soon deliver a “a strong response”.

At the BJP headquarters, leaders have been flooded with messages from state units, calling for “a befitting reply”. Several party leaders linked the Pahalgam terror attack to Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir’s recent remark of Kashmir being Islamabad’s “jugular vein”. The remark, which had drawn a sharp response from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), is now being viewed in Delhi as a “preemptive threat”.