Tharoor ‘disappointed’ at Colombia mourning Pak deaths in strikes

Congress veterans Shashi Tharoor and Salman Khurshid on Friday continued to lead India’s defence during the ongoing global outreach on Operation Sindoor with both backing the official line on non-equivalence of terror victims and perpetrators, and Khurshid even going on to justify the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir — a departure from his own past position. Tharoor, in Bogota, expressed disappointment at Colombia paying condolences for the loss of lives in Pakistan after India’s response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that had killed 26 defenceless civilians. “We were a little disappointed in the reaction of the Colombian government, which apparently expressed heartfelt condolences on the loss of lives in Pakistan after the Indian strikes rather than sympathising with the victims of terrorism,” said Tharoor, leading a multi-party delegation to Colombia. He advised “friends in Colombia that there can be no equivalence between those who dispatch terrorists and those who resist terrorists”. “There can be no equivalence between those who attack and those who defend,” Tharoor said addressing a media conference in Bogota.

U-turn after flak BJP MP Tejaswi Surya, part of the Indian delegation to Colombia, said on Friday night that Bogota had withdrawn the condolence reference made earlier for the lives lost in Pakistan during Operation Sindoor. “We met Colombia’s Vice-Foreign Minister Rosa Yolanda Villavicencio and briefed her on the Pahalgam attack. The Colombian government has withdrawn the communication, accepting that India’s response didn’t take any civilian lives but killed terrorists,” he said.

India has maintained that Operation Sindoor was a non-escalatory response to the Pahalgam terror attack by terrorists trained in Pakistan and it targeted only nine terror hubs. While Tharoor pushed the Indian line firmly, his colleague Salman Khurshid departed from his own previous position on Article 370 abrogation and hailed it. He said the revocation of this provision led to prosperity in Jammu and Kashmir and eliminated the long-standing problem of separatism. Addressing civil society members in Indonesia, where he is travelling as part of an Indian delegation on Operation Sindoor outreach, Khurshid said, “Kashmir had a major problem for a long time. Much of that was reflected in the thinking of the government in an Article called 370 of the Constitution which somehow gave an impression that it was separate from the rest of the country. But Article 370 was abrogated and finally put to an end.” The former External Affairs Minister added that after the abrogation, Jammu and Kashmir witnessed an election with a 65 per cent turnout. “Subsequently there was an election with 65 per cent participation. There is an elected government in Jammu and Kashmir today and therefore for people to want to undo everything that has happened, the prosperity that has come to Kashmir, it is very very unfortunate. It will give a setback to anyone. As you know, nobody can be told to give up a part of your sovereignty, give up a part of your country, or give up a part of your family. Kashmir and we are family and no one can break up our family, our home. That is the only message we are giving. And the limited exercise we need to do to ensure our family remains safe is what we did for four days (Operation Sindoor) and we gave a message to Pakistan not to indulge in any misadventure. You will not succeed. I hope we have been able to give that message,” said Khurshid. Earlier, after the abrogation of Article 370 on August 5, 2019, Khurshid had said the provision paved the way for J&K to remain in India and it was a bond not a barrier. “The state was not just its land or people. It was an idea within the idea of India,” Khurshid had said in 2019.

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