NEW DELHI: Operation Sindoor was in line with the UNSC statement last month underlining the need to bring the perpetrators and the backers of the Pahalgam attack – which was marked by extreme barbarity – to justice and intended to deter more such planned attacks on Indian soil by Pakistan-based terrorist modules, the govt said in a message to the international community.Describing India’s military strikes as non-escalatory, responsible, measured and proportionate, foreign secretary Vikram Misri said there was clear evidence to link Pakistan with the Pahalgam attack, including communication nodes of terrorists “in and to Pakistan”.According to Misri, The Resistance Front (TRF), which claimed responsibility for Pahalgam, was nothing but a front for UN-proscribed Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), and India’s intelligence has developed an accurate picture of the planners and backers of this team.“India exercised its right to respond and pre-empt, as well as deter more such cross-border attacks. India’s actions focused on dismantling the terrorist infrastructure and disabling terrorists likely to be sent across to India,” said Misri, briefing the media about India’s move to defang Pakistan’s terror factory with military strikes on LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) headquarters.Misri said even after two weeks of the attack, there was no demonstrable step by Pakistan against its terrorist infrastructure on its territory or in POK. “Our intelligence monitoring of Pakistan-based terrorist modules indicated that further attacks against India were impending. There was thus a compulsion both to deter and to pre-empt,” he said.Recalling that TRF had claimed responsibility for the Pahalgam attack, Misri said India twice last year brought out its role before a UN committee as a cover for Pakistan-based terrorist groups. “Earlier too, in Dec 2023, India had informed the monitoring team (1267 Sanctions Committee) about LeT and JeM operating through small terror groups such as TRF. Pakistan’s pressure to remove references to TRF in the April 25 UN Security Council Press Statement is notable in this regard,” said Misri. As reported by TOI on April 27, Pakistan had worked with China to water down that statement.Investigations into Pahalgam brought out the communication nodes of terrorists in and to Pakistan, Misri said.“The claims made by TRF and their reposting by known social media handles of LeT speak for themselves. Identification of the attackers, based on eyewitness accounts, as well as other information available to law enforcement agencies, has also progressed,” said Misri, adding that the motive behind the Pahalgam attack was to undermine the normalcy and tourism returning to Kashmir Valley. “The calculation, presumably, was that harming growth and development in the Union territory would help keep it backward and create fertile ground for continued cross-border terrorism from Pakistan,” he said.Misri also said the manner of the Pahalgam attack was driven by an objective of provoking communal discord, both in J&K and the rest of India. “It is to the credit of govt and the people of India that these designs were foiled,” he said.Govt also said the features of the Pahalgam attack were in keeping with Pakistan’s long track record of perpetrating cross-border terror in India, while underscoring Pakistan’s duplicity in its handling of terrorism under pressure from the international community. Misri recalled how Pakistan had misled the FATF to get off its grey list and the Mumbai attacks accused Sajid Mir case in which the accused was declared dead, and then, in response to international pressure, brought back to life, found alive and arrested.“Pakistan also has a well-deserved reputation as a haven for terrorists from around the world, with internationally proscribed terrorists enjoying impunity there. In addition, Pakistan has been known to wilfully mislead the world and international forums,such as the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), on this issue,” said the official.