The Army Chief, General Upendra Dwivedi, on Thursday said that Operation Sindoor was ready within a week of the brutal April 22 Pahalgam massacre, and saw carefully coordinated actions in the information domain well before India fired the first shot.
He noted that the “Justice is Served” tweet later achieved record engagement on social media, reflecting the operation’s strategic communication impact.
The Chief of Army Staff was addressing the gathering during the launch of ‘Redlines Redrawn- Operation Sindoor and India’s New Normal’ in the national capital. The book is authored by Maj Gen Bipin Bakshi (retd.), Air Marshal Rajesh Kumar (retd), Amb Anil Trigunayat, and Brigadier Akhelesh Bhargava (retd).
Stating that the book was “a deja vu feeling” for him while retracing of what transpired post the Pahalgam attack, the COAS said that the operational details mentioned in the book were as close as to the reality.
India’s statement following the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) meeting of April 23, 2025 set the tone for the events to follow. Holding the Indus Water Treaty (IWS) in abeyance and reduction of diplomatic staff in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad were direct actions, which were supplemented by a slew of other diplomatic engagements which ensured worldwide condemnation of the terror strike, the Army Chief said.
“Coming on to the info domain, we saw a series of coordinated actions well planned and put into place even before the first weapon was fired. Op-Sindoor was given to me, if I remember, on 29th or 30th of April. But it was not put out in the media. And as you are aware that the tweet ‘Justice is Served’ had huge record hits on Twitter. Today as of its peak it’s nearly 23 million,” he said.
“The Information Warfare was credible, consistent and to a plan which was unveiled in a sequential manner. And those who said that if you start early, you will be able to fill up the space, they stumbled and they were proved to be telling lies. There were actions in this domain from both the sides but winner in the long run was the one whose narrative was based on truth and backed with the credible evidence.”
“As they say, seeing is believing. And the world saw on their TV screens how the nine targets (terrorist camps) were destroyed in a synergistic manner that all three forces were involved in it through 22 minutes of precision, non-escalatory strikes. And of course, followed by images of later on the damaged airfields or equipment or ground,” the Army Chief added.
He further said that Operation Sindoor also showed that the jointness is no longer something we aspire to do in seminars or discussions. “It is something we practised under pressure and it came out as a successful synergistic organisation. Tactical ups and downs will happen during the counter. However, a wholesome positive end state based on our initial aims is what segregates a very successful mission from a not so successful one. And I can say proudly Op Sindoor was the most successful operations,” added Gen Dwivedi.
He added that the long-held assumption of India requiring extended time for decision-making and a prolonged mobilisation cycle to synchronise force application had been decisively dispelled, with the adversary realising that India’s decision-making loop had become shorter while theirs turned longer and incoherent, a shift that was equally evident in the pre-positioning and calibrated mobilisation of ground forces.
