Qureshi, Singh, 'Nari Shakti': The face of India's response to terrorists

Business Standard

07-05-2025

At 10.30am at the conference room of Delhi's National Media Centre on Wednesday, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri stepped up to the lectern to brief the gathered media corps about India's 'Operation Sindoor'.
The symbolism was not lost either on those present in the hall or the millions watching on television and internet when he introduced Colonel Sofiya Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh, who he said will share operational details of India's pre-dawn missile and drone strikes on nine terror camps in Pakistan.
Government sources said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who closely followed India's fighter jets unleashing missiles on terror camps for 25-minutes from 1.05am, had picked the codename 'Operation Sindoor' as an expression of solidarity with women whose husbands were killed by terrorists in Pahalgam on April 22.
Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta posted 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' on her X handle, and said, 'Operation Sindoor has provided justice to the women who lost their spouses'.
Captain (retired) Manjula Katoch was one of several retired defence services personnel who lauded the symbolism of the press briefing.
She said that fielding Qureshi and Singh to brief the media was to underscore people of all religious persuasion were together in protecting the nation's unity, and to not fall in the trap of Pakistan's attempt at dividing Hindus and Muslims.
At the briefing, Foreign Secretary Misri said that the Pahalgam terror attack was driven by the objective of undermining the normalcy returning to Jammu & Kashmir and hit tourism, but was also an attempt at sowing communal discord in the country.
'The manner of the attack was also driven by an objective of provoking communal discord, both in Jammu & Kashmir and the rest of the nation. It is to the credit of the government and the people of India that these designs were foiled,' Misri said.
At a panel discussion hosted in 2017, Qureshi had shared details of her journey into the armed forces.
'Being a 'fauji' kid, I was exposed to the army environment. My mother wanted either of us two sisters to join the Army. I applied for it and got it. My grandfather was also in the Army,' she had recalled. Qureshi said the Kargil War was on when she joined the academy.
Born in Gujarat's Vadodara in 1974, Qureshi graduated with a Master's in biochemistry from Manonmaniam Sundaranar (MS) University in 1997. An officer in the critical Corps of Signals, in the past, she had been picked for the role of a military observer in Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006, and been part of flood relief operations in the Northeast region. In 2016, she became the first woman officer to lead its contingent at a multi-national field training exercise, Force 18, hosted by India for interoperability in sustaining peace among ASEAN nations.
As for Wing Commander Singh, she shared her story of how she became a pilot during a panel discussion hosted by a private channel in 2023.
'I was in Class 6 when the Eureka moment happened. I realised that I wanted to be a pilot and own the sky. We were having a discussion in class on the meaning of names. Somebody shouted, 'You are Vyomika, which means you own the sky'. Since that day, I have wanted to be a pilot. This was in the early 1990s,' Singh had recalled.
She has logged over 2,500 flying hours, and has operated several helicopters across some of the country's most challenging terrains. In 2020, she led a rescue operation in Arunachal Pradesh, flying in extreme conditions to evacuate civilians.