May 13, 2025

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation issued the following statement in the wake of the Indian government’s Operation Sindoor on May 7, 2025.

The government of India and the Indian Armed Forces have informed the country about the [claimed] demolition of nine terror-training camps across Pakistan, past midnight in the early hours of May 7. The Indian authorities have attributed the operation to credible intelligence inputs and have described it as a precise and restrained response carried out with a calibrated and non-escalatory approach.

Pakistan, however, talks of civilian casualties, including women and children. In the aftermath of Operation Sindoor, there are already reports of cross-border firing and several civilian deaths in Jammu and Kashmir.

Clearly there are alarming signs of yet another India-Pakistan war looming large. All efforts must be made to prevent a war between the two nuclear-powered neighbours and explore the whole range of non-military diplomatic options to curb terrorism and de-escalate tension.

The government of India has also announced an extensive exercise of mock drills in more than two hundred centres across the country. The last time mock drills had happened on such a big scale was in 1971 when India and Pakistan had actually been involved in a major war. While mock drills are techniques of bolstering security by spreading public alertness, we must make sure that such drills do not vitiate India’s internal climate and create a jingoistic clamour for war.

The name Operation Sindoor ostensibly invokes the agenda of justice for the women who have lost their husbands in the [April 22] terror attack in Pahalgam [in India-controlled Kashmir]. Justice for the victim’s families calls upon us to respect their voices, their call for maintaining peace and harmony and their concerns about the multiple lapses that enabled the terrorists to carry out the heinous attack. Action must be taken against the troll army and influential political voices who are indulging in hate-mongering against courageous women like Himanshi Narwal and Shaila Negi.

In the wake of the Pahalgam terror attack and now Operation Sindoor, the internet is flooded with claims, counterclaims and fake news. While checking the flow of fake news and misinformation, the right to freedom of expression and dissent must not be suppressed.

The fabricated charges against Bhojpuri folk singer Neha Singh Rathore, Lucknow University professor and political satirist Madri Kakoti, [banning of] digital news channel 4PM network and now the “disappearance” of the YouTube channel of journalist Punya Prasun Bajpai point to a new phase of heightened attacks on dissent [in India] by terming it anti-national.

We call upon the government of India to stop this policy of suppression and appeal to all justice-loving Indians to stay firm and united against all kinds of terror, hate and repression and continue to uphold peace, harmony and democracy. We also call upon the government of Pakistan to stop the terror camps in Pakistan and appeal to the people of Pakistan to raise their voices against terror and war.

Across the India-Pakistan border, let us say a loud no to another India-Pakistan war and mount pressure for bilateral de-escalation of tension.