Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has warned of a forceful response to any future terrorist attack on Indian soil, following four tense days of cross-border shelling and aerial skirmishes with Pakistan.
“This is not an era of war, but this is also not an era of terror,” Modi said in a national address on Monday — his first public statement since the clashes erupted. His comments followed a US-brokered ceasefire between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, which has largely held since the weekend.
The recent flare-up began after a deadly militant attack in Indian-administered Kashmir killed 26 people. India blamed a Pakistan-based group for the assault — an accusation Islamabad firmly denied.
The fighting escalated rapidly, with both sides launching strikes across the Line of Control (LoC), claiming to have destroyed each other’s military and militant infrastructure. India reported hitting 11 Pakistani airbases and nine armed group camps, while Pakistan claimed strikes on 26 Indian facilities and said its drones had flown over New Delhi.
As tensions reached a boiling point, the United States intervened, with President Donald Trump urging both nations to de-escalate. “It was time to stop the current aggression,” Trump said Saturday. Modi echoed this sentiment but stressed that future provocations would not go unanswered. “Terror and trade talks cannot happen together,” he said.
India also reopened 32 airports that had been shut amid the hostilities, signalling a gradual return to normalcy — though both sides remain on high alert.
Despite mutual declarations of “military victory,” the crisis has underscored the volatility of India-Pakistan relations and the enduring risk posed by their decades-long Kashmir dispute.
