Panama City: Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, who is leading a delegation to Panama, on Tuesday (local time) slammed Pakistan over their continuous attack on Indian territory through terrorism.

While addressing the Indian diaspora at the Sociedad Hindostana de Panama, Tharoor condemned Pakistan’s continuous assaults on Indian soil and said, "Unfortunately, our desire to just be left alone is not reciprocated by our friends on the other side of the border. They have chosen repeatedly to attack us because they believe that they want territory which they do not control, which we control. It is part of the sovereign borders of the United Indian, and we are not going to give it to them even if we have to pay the price that we have repeatedly been paid".

He underscored that India has endured repeated assaults over the past four decades, stressing that such suffering cannot be allowed to continue.

"We have suffered attack after attack for almost four decades now. Going back from the first attacks in Kashmir in 1989 onwards, we have seen repeated outrageous civilian victims", Tharoor said.

"It is just not acceptable for us to continue to bear the pain, the grief, the wounds, the losses, and then merely go and tell the international community, look what is happening to us. Please help us. Please put pressure on the perpetrators to actually identify and prosecute the criminals", he added.

Tharoor also pointed to India’s strategic shift in recent years when responding to acts of terrorism. He referenced the Uri surgical strikes and the Balakot airstrike as evidence of this change.

"What has changed in recent years is that the terrorists have also realised they will have a price to pay, on that, let there be no doubt. When, for the first time, India breached the Line of Control between India and Pakistan to conduct a surgical strike on a terror base, a launch pad - the Uri strike in September 2015. That was already something we had not done before. Even during the Kargil War, we had not crossed the Line of Control; in Uri, we did, and then came the attack in Pulwama in January 2019. This time, we crossed not only the Line of Control but also the international border, and we struck the terrorist headquarters in Balakot. This time, we have gone beyond both of those. We have not only gone beyond the Line of Control and the international border. We have struck at the Punjabi heartland of Pakistan by hitting terror bases, training centres, terror headquarters in nine places", Tharoor said.

He also justified Operation Sindoor as a response to the Pahalgam terror attack, recounting the emotional anguish of affected families. "Some women cried out asking the terrorists to kill me too, and they said, 'No, go back, tell what happened to you. We heard, we heard their cries and India decided that the colour of the Sindoor, the vermilion colour on the forehead of our women, will also match the colour of the blood of the killers, the perpetrators, the attackers", he said.

"Our Prime Minister has made it very clear Operation Sindoor was necessary because these terrorists came and wiped the Sindoor off the foreheads of 26 women by depriving them of their husbands and fathers, their married lives", he added.

A moment of silence was observed in memory of the innocent civilians killed in Pahalgam terror attack by Tharoor-led delegation along with members of the Indian community at the Sociedad Hindostana de Panama - a prominent Panamanian Indian cultural institution.

The all party delegation led by Tharoor arrived in Panama City for a three-day official visit after concluding their visit to Guyana.

The delegation, led by Shashi Tharoor, comprises Members of Parliament - Sarfaraz Ahmed, G M Harish Balayogi, Shashank Mani Tripathi, Tejasvi Surya, Bhubaneswar Kalita, Mallikarjun Devda, Milind Deora and former Indian Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu.

ANI