The Union government told a parliamentary committee on Monday that there was no nuclear signalling by Islamabad during the recent conflict between India and Pakistan, and that the United States was not involved in the decision to halt the firing, The Hindu reported.

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri clarified to the standing committee on external affairs, headed by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, that the director-general of military operations had spoken to his Pakistani counterpart about Operation Sindoor only after the “first strike” was conducted.

Misri’s comment came in response to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi saying on Sunday that “informing Pakistan at the start of our attack was a crime”.

Gandhi’s comment came two days after External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar told reporters that “at the start of the operation” India had “sent a message to Pakistan saying that we are striking at terrorist infrastructure”.

“We are not striking at the military, and so the [Pakistani] military has the option of standing out and not interfering in the process,” Jaishankar had quoted the Indian armed forces as having told Islamabad.

Tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad had escalated on May 7 when the Indian military carried out strikes – codenamed Operation Sindoor – on what it claimed were terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The strikes were in response to the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam, which killed 26 persons on April 22.

The Pakistan Army retaliated to Indian strikes by repeatedly shelling Indian villages along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. At least 22 Indian civilians and seven defence personnel were killed.

On May 10, India and Pakistan reached an “understanding” to halt firing following a four-day conflict.

On Monday, Misri reiterated New Delhi’s position that the decision to stop firing was taken at a bilateral level and that there was no intervention by the United States, The Indian Express reported.

Misri had on May 10 announced the decision to stop military action minutes after US President Donald Trump claimed on social media that India and Pakistan had agreed to the ceasefire. The US president had claimed that the ceasefire talks were mediated by Washington.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had claimed at the time that New Delhi and Islamabad had agreed to “start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site”.

Also read: Interview: US claiming credit for ceasefire sets Indian foreign policy back by decades

However, the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had said that the decision to stop the firing was “worked out directly between the two countries”, a position that New Delhi has maintained.

“There is no decision to hold talks on any other issue at any other place,” the ministry had added.

Trump has, however, repeated claims that his administration helped settle tensions between India and Pakistan.

At the meeting on Monday, an Opposition MP asked what India was doing to capture terrorists involved in the Pahalgam attack, The Indian Express reported.

The Hindu quoted Tharoor as saying that the Ministry of External Affairs and Misri had answered members’ questions satisfactorily.

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