'Fitting part of unfortunate incident': MEA on Operation Sindoor and justice for murdered US journalist Daniel Pearl

NEW DELHI: Foreign secretary Vikram Misri on Friday drew a direct line between Pakistan-based terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and the 2002 abduction and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, saying the attack on the terror outfit's headquarters in Bahawalpur during Operation Sindoor seems "a fitting part of this unfortunate incident of his death. “The Jaish-e-Mohammed was in some way, directly or indirectly, responsible for the death of Daniel Pearl,” Misri said, highlighting that the key figure behind Pearl’s murder, British-Pakistani jihadi Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, had long-standing links with JeM.Also Read: How Operation Sindoor brought justice for beheaded American journalist Daniel PearlSheikh, who was serving time in an Indian prison for kidnapping foreign nationals, was released in 1999 in exchange for passengers of hijacked Indian Airlines flight IC-814. He later emerged as the man who lured Pearl into captivity in Karachi, where the Wall Street Journal reporter was eventually beheaded.“So these are all obviously connected figures, connected individuals, connected institutions,” Misri noted. “The attack on Bahawalpur, on that facility of Jaish-e-Mohammed, is, I would imagine, a fitting part of this unfortunate incident,” Misri said.India’s Operation Sindoor, launched in response to the Pahalgam terror attack, targeted key terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, including JeM’s operational nerve centre in Bahawalpur in Pakistan's Punjab. The ministry of defence said the strikes were “measured and proportionate”.Several reports have claimed that most wanted Abdul Rauf Azhar and brother of Masood Azhar was also killed in the strike.Azhar’s role in the IC-814 hijacking had led to release of Omar Saeed Sheikh, who later kidnapped and killed Daniel Pearl.