‘There should be no retaliation’: Ro Khanna's stern message to Pakistan army chief Asim Munir after Operation Sindoor

US Congressman Ro Khanna has called for Pakistan's Army chief Asim Munir to not go for a retaliation in aftermath of India's Operation Sindoor that destroyed Pakistani terror camps in the early hours of May 7.

Calling Munir a dictator, Khanna said that there should be an end to the tensions between India and Pakistan that have been brewing since the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 civilians.

“I would like to first make it clear to Asim Munir that there should be no retaliation on either side. This should be the end of it,” he said during a televised interview with CNN.

He also noted that the US gives a “lot of leverage” to Pakistan.

“We have a lot of leverage with Pakistan. We give IMF loans to Pakistan. They're dependent upon that,” the Indian-origin US leader said.

No honest voice in Pakistan

Lashing out at Pakistan Army Chief of Staff Asim Munir, Ro Khanna said he was a dictator who put erstwhile Prime Minister Imran Khan in jail, which has left the country without an “honest voice”.

“We also have to understand that Asim Munir is a dictator who didn't have legitimate elections, who's put Imran Khan in jail. There is no honest voice right now in Pakistan, because it's a dictatorship. We should be calling for elections, fair elections, after the de-escalation,” he said.

Khanna said that Munir should free Imran Khan and stop any retaliation.

“We should be saying to Asim Munir that he needs to free Imran Khan, stop any retaliation, and then have a fair election, because there was a rigged election there. They've jailed Imran Khan, and he's not a voice for the Pakistani people,” he said.

However, the politician had a message for PM Narendra Modi as well, urging him to not withhold the Indus Waters Treaty and stop water flow to Pakistan.

“We should also make it clear to Prime Minister Modi, in my view, that he should not be cutting off the water. That was part of the Shimla Accords. You can't deprive a population of water,” he said.

Stressing on the need for de-escalation, Khanna further said that he hoped Donald Trump had people who understood the India-Pakistan region.

“But the important thing now is for de-escalation. I do hope that President Trump has people who understand the region. The only reason I say that, he said they've been fighting for centuries, just historically, they haven't been around for a century,” he said.

Operation Sindoor

On Wednesday, during a press conference in New Delhi, Wing Commander Vyomika Singh said, “Operation Sindoor was launched by the Indian Armed Forces to deliver justice to the victims of the Pahalgam terror attack and their families. Nine terrorist camps were targeted and successfully destroyed... The locations were so selected to avoid damage to civilian infrastructures and loss of any civilian lives”.

Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said that the attack on Pahalgam was driven by an objective of undermining the return of normalcy in Jammu and Kashmir.

“The attack in Pahalgam was marked with extreme barbarity, with the victims mostly killed with head shots at close range and in front of their family...the family members were deliberately traumatised through the manner of killing, accompanied by the exhortation that they should take back the message. The attack was clearly driven by the objective of undermining normalcy returning to Kashmir,” he said.