Pak President Asif Ali Zardari admits he was urged to move to bunkers during Operation Sindoor

PTC News Desk: Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari during his address to a rally admitted that he was urged to move to bunkers during the four day conflict between India and Pakistan in May. However, he declined the advice as he told the gathering. 

India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7 following deadly terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam that claimed 26 lives on April 26. 

After the strikes started, Zardari revealed that his military secretary had requested him to take shelter in a bunker.

"He (the secretary) came to me and said that 'war has begun. Let's go to the bunkers.' But I told him that if martyrdom is to come, it will come here. Leaders don't die in bunkers. They die on the battlefield," the Pakistani president said in his speech, indicating the highest levels of alarm that rang in the power corridors of Islamabad after India's strikes.

Zardari further said that he was aware of the attacks four days earlier but claimed that he refused to move to a bunker when advised to do so. 

Tensions de-escalated after Pakistan’s Director General of Military Operations reached out to his Indian counterpart with a proposal for a ceasefire, which India agreed to. The initiative from Pakistan was later confirmed by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, who said the two sides had decided to halt all military actions on land, at sea and in the air.

India’s response came in the wake of the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam, which New Delhi attributed to cross-border terrorism and which triggered demands for firm retaliatory measures. The strikes carried out in May represented one of the most serious military standoffs between India and Pakistan in recent years, before the ceasefire came into force.