India, May 8 -- Punjab witnessed heightened security, shuttered borders, and escalating public anxiety on Wednesday in the aftermath of "Operation Sindoor" - the Indian Armed Forces' swift and targeted air strikes on terrorist infrastructure inside Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) - carried out in retaliation to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 civilians.
With Punjab sharing a 553-kilometre-long volatile international border with Pakistan, the response across the border state was swift and sweeping - from cancelling iconic military ceremonies to putting health services on high alert, and from closing educational institutions in five districts to shutting international airports in Amritsar and Chandigarh.
In a...