Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar stated the need to always respond to terrorism, even if this requires refusal to comply with certain rules. He made the corresponding statement during a conversation with young people in the city of Pune in the western state of Maharashtra.
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“Terrorists should not feel that because they are abroad, no one can touch them. Terrorists do not play by any rules, so the response to terrorists cannot have any rules,” he said.
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In this context, the minister recalled the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, when terrorists arriving from Pakistan killed almost 170 people.
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“After the Mumbai attack, there was not a single person who believed that we should not have responded. But at that time it was believed that the cost of attacking Pakistan was higher than the cost of not attacking Pakistan,” he said.
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“If something like Mumbai happens now, and if no one reacts, how can the next attack be prevented?” Jaishankar pointed out.
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According to him, “terrorism is unacceptable under any circumstances.”
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On November 26, 2008, four mobile groups of terrorists, arriving from Pakistan and armed with machine guns, carried out a series of attacks and hostage-takings in Mumbai, India. They fired at people near the station and a cafe, attacked a police station, a hospital and a Jewish cultural center, and took hostages in two hotels. The militants resisted until November 28, when the last of them were destroyed by security forces. As a result of the terrorist attacks, 166 people were killed and 9 terrorists were eliminated.
