New Delhi [India], May 11 (ANI): Senior Congress leader and former Union Education Minister Karan Singh on Sunday said that US President Donald Trump announcing the 'ceasefire' between India and Pakistan amid escalated tensions following the launch Operation Sindoor, in response to the ghastly Pahalgam terror attack could have been avoided.

He expressed surprise over Trump announcing a 'ceasefire' before anyone else, but said that the possible damage on both sides due to escalation has been averted. Singh, son of former Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir Hari Singh, informed that this was not the first time that a third party had intervened.

'This is not the first time a third party has intervened. After the 1965 war, for instance, we went to Tashkent and signed an agreement with third-party involvement - the Soviet Union at the time... What was interesting this time was that President Trump announced it before anybody else, which could have been avoided... the escalation would have caused massive damage on both the sides and that has been averted,' Singh told ANI.

'The Prime Minister did very well by giving the armed forces a free hand... The armed forces acted professionally with restraint and maturity,' he added.

More than 100 terrorists, including those involved in the 1999 Indian Airlines flight (IC-814) hijacking, and the 2019 Pulwama terror attack, were eliminated in the precision strikes carried out by the armed forces in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) under Operation Sindoor, Director General Military Operations (DGMO) Lieutenant General Rajiv Ghai said on Sunday.

He added that Operation Sindoor was conceptualised with a precise military aim to 'punish the perpetrators and planners of the Pahalgam terror attack.'

'Operation Sindoor was conceptualised with a clear military aim to punish the perpetrators and planners of terror and to destroy their terror infrastructure. What I do not state here is the often stated determination of India and its intolerance to terror,' Ghai said in a press conference here.

The Indian strikes killed 'high-value targets', namely, Yusuf Azhar, Abdul Malik Rauf and Mudasir Ahmed, who were involved in the hijacking of IC 814, popularly known as the Kandahar hijack, and the Pulwama attack, where 40 CRPF jawans were killed in 2019.

'Those strikes across those nine terror hubs left more than 100 terrorists killed, including high-value targets such as Yusuf Azhar, Abdul Malik Rauf and Mudasir Ahmed, who were involved in the hijack of IC814 and the Pulwama blast,' the DGMO added. (ANI)