Video: Asked About Operation Sindoor Name, Shashi Tharoor’s ‘Blood Spilt In Pahalgam’ Response

Shashi Tharoor responded to Sindoor- name of India's Operation against Pakistan following attack in Pahalgam that killed 26 people.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor.

Source : PTI

Amid the ongoing tension between India and Pakistan following the attack in Pahalgam, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor told a Saudi Arabian news channel that the colour of sindoor is not very different from the colour of blood spilled by the perpetrators of the terror attack in Jammu-Kashmir. Tharoor said this while speaking with Al Arabiya, a Saudi Arabian news channel, about the India-Pakistan tension.

Indian Member of Parliament for Lok Sabha @ShashiTharoor says #India’s “Operation Sindoor” is a powerful name that evokes the grief of a newly widowed bride—turning a symbol of marriage into a reminder of bloodshed and loss. #Pakistan #GNT pic.twitter.com/sWroFJFjMc

— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) May 9, 2025

He said, Sindoor is the vermilion mark married women put in the parting of their hair. "The image that was seared into the nation's consciousness after the terrorist attack in Pahalgam was of a newly wedded -- now newly widowed -- bride on her honeymoon kneeling disconsolately by the body of her slain husband, in other words, the terrorist attack had wiped the sindoor of her forehead as only married women wear it," the senior Congress leader said referring to the heartbreaking image of Himanshi Narwal, wife of Indian Navy officer Lieutenant Vinay Narwal.

Terrorists in Jammu-Kashmir killed Vinay days after his wedding. Besides him, twenty-four other tourists and a Kashmiri man were killed in the attack.

"It (Operation Sindoor) was a very emotive, emotional term to remind people of what had happened and why this action was necessary, of that innocent civilians, including this young woman and a few other women who were widowed in the process of the same attacks, had experienced," Mr Tharoor said. "I might add, there is also undoubtedly the evocative thought that the colour of sindoor is not that different from the colour of blood and that was what was spilt by the terrorists in our country. I thought it was a very, very evocative, emotional and powerful choice to name the operation that way," the four-time MP from Thiruvananthapuram said.