Pakistan targeted the Golden Temple and several cities in Punjab with drones and missiles on May 7-8 night, the Indian Army said on Monday.

India’s air defence system, however, foiled the attempt, which came in retaliation to India’s precision strikes on nine terrorist camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on May 6-7 night as part of Operation Sindoor.

This is the first time the army has specifically mentioned the Golden Temple in Amritsar as one of Pakistan’s targets during the May 6-10 conflict.

Earlier, New Delhi had accused Islamabad of “targeting places of worship” in India, saying several “gurudwaras, convents and temples” close to the frontier in Jammu and Kashmir had come under attack from Pakistani shells and drones.

“Knowing that the Pak army does not have any legitimate targets, we anticipated that they would target Indian military installations and civilian targets, including religious places,” Major General Kartik C. Seshadri, GOC, 15 Infantry Division, said in a briefing on Monday.

“Of these, the Golden Temple appeared to be the most prominent. We mobilised additional modern air defence assets to give a holistic air defence umbrella cover to the Golden Temple,” he said.

“We were fully prepared (for the Pakistani assault) since we had anticipated this, and we shot down all the drones and missiles targeted at the Golden Temple.”

Seshadri said the Indian armed forces had targeted many places with “absolute precision” during Operation Sindoor, striking terror camps in several places, including Muridke and Bahawalpur.

The Lashkar-e-Toiba is headquartered in Muridke, close to Lahore, and the Jaish-e-Mohammed in Bahawalpur.

At the briefing, the army displayed the wreckage of drones and missiles launched from Pakistan and intercepted by Indian air defence radar systems.

The army also provided a demonstration of how its air defence systems, including the upgraded L-70 air defence guns and Akash missile, neutralised the Pakistani drones and missiles.

General Upendra Dwivedi, the army chief, on Monday visited Longewala in the forward areas of the Konark Corps in the Rajasthan-Gujarat desert sector to congratulate the troops on their role during Operation Sindoor.

He reviewed the joint action taken by the army, air force and the Border Security Force in the desert region, which stretches from Jaisalmer in Rajasthan to the Kutch region of Gujarat, during Operation Sindoor.