The NYT report emphasised India’s official stance, noting that the strikes were “measured, responsible, and designed to be non-escalatory.”

Foreign Secretary of India Vikram Misri, at a press briefing on Thursday, addressed the “mention of escalation” by Pakistan and said that the original escalation was the April 22 terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam,

Sheikh Sajjad Gul, a 50-year-old Kashmiri and head of Lashkar-e-Taiba proxy The Resistance Front (TRF), has emerged as the mastermind of the Pahalgam terror attack.