New Delhi: Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri Monday told the Parliamentary Committee on External Affairs that there was “no nuclear signalling” from Pakistan during the recent conflict which remained in the “conventional domain,” ThePrint has learnt.
At the meeting of the committee, chaired by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, Misri faced questions on Operation Sindoor and Pakistan’s retaliation.
Misri is learnt to have defended External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar over the ongoing controversy spurred by his remarks. Misri said Jaishankar’s statement that India sent a message to Islamabad at the start of Operation Sindoor that it would target only terrorist infrastructure and not the military was taken “out of context”. Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, has been attacking Jaishankar on this count.
The foreign secretary added that India did so only after the conclusion of the initial phase of the strikes on the morning of 7 May, sources said.
Proceedings of parliamentary committees are privileged and its details are not made public
It is learnt from sources that the MPs also “unanimously condemned” the trolling Misri faced after he formally announced the cessation of military action on behalf of the government. A resolution was also adopted praising him.
Members of the 31-member committee include BJP’s Ravi Shankar Prasad and Aparajita Sarangi; TMC’s Abhishek Banerjee and Sagarika Ghose; Congress’s Rajeev Shukla and Deepender Singh Hooda; AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi; and Arvind Sawant of the Shiv Sena (UBT).
It is learnt that Misri asserted that the decision to cease hostilities between India and Pakistan was taken purely at the bilateral level, responding to questions from MPs on the role played by the United States.
Sources said Misri wryly remarked that US President Donald Trump “did not ask my permission to do so” when asked about the latter’s repeated assertions on and off social media that Washington brokered a truce between New Delhi and Islamabad as the conflict was threatening to become nuclear.
However, government sources said, “All that was said was that the mechanics of ending the hostilities was worked out bilaterally. Rest all is speculation and misattribution.”
One MP, it is learnt, questioned efforts to capture or kill the terrorists who carried out the 22 April attack in Pahalgam that triggered India’s military response and the subsequent flare-up with Pakistan.
Moreover, questions were also raised on whether New Delhi was mulling any steps to act against Turkiye at the diplomatic level, citing its stance during the conflict. Misri also faced questions on whether New Delhi was keeping the door open for holding dialogue with Pakistan in the future.
This is an updated version of the report.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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