5 questions that Lok Sabha debate on Operation Sindoor failed to answer

The 16-hour-long debate on Operation Sindoor in the Lok Sabha, spread over two days and almost two hours of which were taken up by the prime minister’s reply, left the questions unanswered. The high point of the debate, during which PM Narendra Modi referred to Jawaharlal Nehru 14 times, from the government’s point of view was marked by the union home minister Amit Shah announcing the death in encounter of the Pahalgam terrorists.

Union home minister Amit Shah informed the Lok Sabha that the terrorists were identified by the Pakistani voters’ card and the Made-in-Pakistan chocolates that were found in their possession. The ballistic report said that the firearms and ammunition recovered from the dead terrorists were the ‘exact match’ with those used in Pahalgam. The home minister declared with a flourish that forensic experts in Chandigarh had told him over a video conference at 4.16 am that they were ‘100 per cent certain’ about the match.

It was a curious that the announcement coincided with the Opposition demanding to know how the terrorists infiltrated into Pahalgam and why they were yet to be apprehended, three months after the terror strike on 22 April, 2025. Sceptics rolled their eyes at the claim that the terrorists, conveniently for the government, were carrying their voters’ ID and chocolates made in Pakistan. That they still carried them three months after Pahalgam can possibly be attributed to their poor training and home-sickness!

Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphatically denied the charge that India was pressurised by US president Donald Trump into a ceasefire on 10 May, 2025. Both the PM and the Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh maintained that it was the Pakistani DGMO who pleaded for an end to the aerial battle.

The PM did say that US vice president JD Vance had informed him over the phone that Pakistan was preparing for a massive strike on India. PM Modi recalled in some detail that on the evening of 9 May, Vance tried to speak to him four times but he could not take the call as he was busy in meetings with military commanders.

When the PM finally called the US VP back and was told of the imminent strike (possibly nuclear) by Pakistan, the PM claimed to have told him that if Pakistan dared to attack…

What the PM did not explain was how and why the US president Donald Trump announced the ceasefire the next day, 10 May, 2025 an hour before the Indian foreign secretary did the same?

In fact, hours after the PM’s speech in the Lok Sabha, the US president declared for the 29^th time that he had brokered the ceasefire between India and Pakistan. Donald Trump was replying to correspondents on board US Air Force 1, the presidential plane, while flying back from Scotland.

Some of the questions that the government failed to answer during the 16 hour-long debate are the following:

1.   Were their intelligence reports of terrorist activities and infiltration before Pahalgam? Why did the prime minister cancel his scheduled visit to Kashmir three days before the attack?

2.  What were the security lapses that led to the attack? Why was there not a single policeman in the Baisaran Valley that day?

3.  If there were lapses, has anyone been held accountable? Have heads rolled? Why did the J & K LG Manoj Sinha in a newspaper interview admitted to security lapses and took personal responsibility? Why have the home minister and the IB chief and others not held accountable? Why was the IB chief given an extension instead?

4.  Did the Indian Air Force suffer losses of aircrafts in the four-day war because it was constrained by political masters, as suggested by military officials?

5.  Why has the diplomatic heft of Pakistan increased after Operation Sindoor? It has been backed by both the US and China; the US president invited the Pakistani army chief to lunch at the White House and is engaging with Pakistan for trade and rare earth minerals. What kind of deterrence did Operation Sindoor achieve?