Former CDS Gen Anil Chauhan (retd) on Tuesday said a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 29, following the Pahalgam attack, decided that "we should teach Pakistan a big lesson" through an "unthinkable" action, stressing that India will not tolerate cross-border terrorism and that it must end.
PM Modi told the forces to "do it at your own time, but ensure there is no reason for failure" and "we should have evidence", Chauhan said at an event in New Delhi, sharing how key decisions related to Operation Sindoor were taken during the crucial meeting, where Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, NSA Ajit Doval and the three service chiefs were also present.
"On April 29, when we went there, the big decision there was that 'we should teach Pakistan a big lesson, because India will not tolerate cross-border terrorism and this must end'," the former CDS said, adding that words like "it should be beyond..." and "soch ke bahar ho (unthinkable)" were cited.
He suggested that the Bahawalpur target was especially included in the list during the meeting for this reason and the night hour was chosen for the strikes to minimise civilian casualties.
This is the first time Gen Chauhan has shared in public details of the decisions taken during that meeting, held days before India conducted the military operation against nine terror infrastructure sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) in May 2025, killing over 100 terrorists, to avenge the Pahalgam terror attack on April 22 last year.
In his talk on 'Operation Sindoor and its Aftermath', the former CDS said the decision of "how force is to be applied" was taken in the April 29 meeting and
"Initially, there was a doubt if we would be able to strike at midnight hour and yet obtain evidence of those strikes in pitch darkness.
"Yet, we were confident of the capabilities that we had created, and we said yes, we will be able to do that at midnight," said Gen Chauhan, who retired on May 30. "And, it helped us in maintaining surprise," he said.
The Prime Minister "told us that he is not under any kind of political pressure to do it immediately". He had also said, "do it at your own time, but ensure there is no reason for failure, either due to human or technical reason, and we should have evidence of whatever we do", Chauhan said
Markaz Taiba in Muridke, and Markaz Subhanallah in Bahawalpur (linked to Jaish-e-Mohammed) were among the nine targets hit by the Indian forces in the early hours of May 7 last year.
On April 23, the other instruments of power -- how do you want to use diplomacy, your economic power -- those decisions were also taken, Chauhan said.
The decision of how force was to be applied was taken on April 29, when the CDS, the three service chiefs, the defence minister, and the National Security Advisor (NSA) had met the PM, the retired general said.
"Between April 23-29, there were a number of activities happening between us. The Chiefs of Staff Committee met 4-5 times, and an equal number of times with the NSA. We went to the government... we had a number of options which we had discussed with the NSA," he said.
Also in the April 29 meeting, the Bahawalpur target was included in the list. That was on the insistence of the defence minister, because the PM had said that "we need to do something big", Gen Chauhan (retd) said.
"This target was at a distance, yet we included it. Once we included the Bahawalpur target in the list, the use of air (power) became inherent in it; loiter munitions and drones won't be able to reach, and success wouldn't have been ensured," he added.
The Indian government and the armed forces have maintained that Operation Sindoor "drew a new red line" -- and that if terror is state policy, it will be met with a "visible and forceful response", marking a shift from "deterrence to direct action".
The former CDS said decisions at the operational level were held along with the NSA.
"The identification of targets was a major challenge for us. Some had been vacated after the PM had said that we will go after these terror targets. Some had been reoccupied, some had been relocated, so there was a constant battle going on between us, intelligence agencies, our military intelligence, as to which are the camps we should strike," he said.
In his talk delivered at the event hosted by Vivekananda International Foundation, Gen Chauhan (retd) said Operation Sindoor is "still ongoing", though major parts of the operation have concluded.
The Chiefs of Staff Committee-level decisions included the Service's alert levels, timing of the attack and the day of the attack, based on analysis of April 23 till about May 6, he added.
(With inputs from PTI)
