Union Home Minister Amit Shah stated on Friday that Pakistan would not be able to fight a "war with complete information" for a long time. He said this was due to the total destruction of its surveillance infrastructure during India’s strikes in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Pakistan earlier this month.

Shah toured Jammu for two days. This marked his first visit since India carried out the 'Operation Sindoor' strikes. He addressed the Border Security Force (BSF) in Poonch, the town that witnessed the most intense cross-border shelling after the strikes.

India launched the strikes in retaliation to the Pahalgam terror attack, in which 26 people, including a Pakistani national, lost their lives. Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated after the incident.

In his speech, Shah referred to a report submitted by the Director General of the BSF after the strikes. He said, “The biggest damage on the Pakistan side has been the destruction of its surveillance capabilities.” He continued, “You destroyed their entire surveillance network one by one, which the enemy may take 4–5 years to re-establish… Woh ab lambey samay tak sampuran jankari wali ladai nahi lad payega (It will not be able to fight a war with complete information about the other side for a long time).”

Shah stated that after Pakistan attacked residential areas in India, the BSF’s Jammu Frontier destroyed over 118 Pakistani posts. He called it a major accomplishment that such widespread destruction was carried out in just three days.

He said, “This means that even during peacetime, you continued keeping surveillance on their ‘vidunsak’ (destructive) infrastructure. You kept this precise information in mind and also made preparations about how to cause maximum damage within the shortest possible time.”

Shah noted that the BSF faced the first assault on the country’s borders. He said, “That is why every child in the country also knows you as the first line of defence of the country.”

During the visit, Shah met families who had lost their loved ones in the cross-border shelling. At an event in Poonch, where he offered jobs to those families, he said that India’s defence mechanism would grow stronger in light of the actions of the terrorists and Pakistan.

He said, “The entire sequence of events has showcased India’s defence policy and has shown to the entire world that it will not tolerate any sort of assault on its citizens.” He added that any attacks would receive a response with “much more precision and severity.”

Shah said the strikes killed hundreds of terrorists. He noted, “This was perhaps the first time that India’s defence forces destroyed a terror headquarters linked to various outfits in Pakistan.”

He added, “This befitting reply could be possible only due to the bold political will and decision of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, coupled with accurate information by our intelligence agencies and our defence forces’ courage and precision strike capabilities.”

Shah further said, “Under that policy of responding to every terror attack with the same swiftness and severity, India had destroyed terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on the night of May 7. We had attacked terrorists, but Pakistan took it as an attack on itself and proved before the entire world that it was harbouring terrorists and it had been a safe haven for terrorists.”

He clarified that Indian forces did not attack Pakistan’s army camps nor did they kill civilians. He said, “The Indian forces had in a precise and calibrated response” to the Pahalgam terror attack.

“But what Pakistan did – shelling residential areas of Jammu and Kashmir the next day – is baffling,” he said. “And when Pakistan attacked our civilians, the Indian defence forces gave a befitting reply and destroyed nine of their air stations and damaged their striking capabilities, making them ask for a ceasefire.”

He reminded that Prime Minister Modi had already stated that terror and talks cannot go together, just like “blood and water cannot flow together.”

Shah said that no compensation or job could make up for the loss of human lives. “This is just a gesture to express the feelings of the Jammu and Kashmir government, the Centre and the people of India. It is to say ‘we are with you’,” he said.