Surgical strikes, Op Sindoor show India's zero-tolerance terror policy: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday that India now follows a zero-tolerance policy towards terrorism, pointing to the 2016 surgical strikes, the Balakot airstrike and Operation Sindoor as evidence of a decisive shift in the country's response to terror attacks.

Speaking in his monthly radio address, Mann Ki Baat, the Prime Minister described the surgical strikes as a historic achievement. He recalled that on September 28-29, 2016, the Indian Army struck terrorist hideouts across the Line of Control, and said the world watched with astonishment as Indian soldiers crossed the LoC to act against terrorism. The operation, he said, offered the world a bold new example of India's counter-terrorism approach.

Modi said the surgical strikes were a decisive answer to the pain India had suffered over years of terrorist violence. He added that over the past decade, from the Balakot airstrike to Operation Sindoor, India has repeatedly conveyed that any terrorist attempt to target the country will draw a fitting response.

The Prime Minister also looked back at earlier periods when serial blasts were frequent, referring to the 2008 Delhi serial blasts and the 26/11 Mumbai attack. He noted that while demands for action against Pakistan followed every terror strike in the past, such calls often did not receive due attention and the approach was to wait for time to pass. That has changed, he said, with India's zero-tolerance policy now yielding visible results.

In the same address, Modi offered condolences to the families of those killed in the September 11 terror attack on the World Trade Center in the United States, noting that after Americans, Indians accounted for the highest number of casualties.

Turning to the ongoing Census exercise, the Prime Minister said a grand picture of the nation is emerging and that the first phase is nearly complete across all states and Union Territories. Data from over 32 crore families has already been recorded, with work continuing in remote, snow-clad regions of Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Uttarakhand.

Calling the Census a national responsibility, Modi urged citizens to self-enumerate online so that accurate data is available for planning the country's future.