India doesn’t want to escalate situation: Swaraj

India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj today said New Delhi "does not wish to see further escalation of the situation" and "will continue to act with responsibility and restraint."

Her comments came a day after India's warplanes struck at terror camps in Pakistan, raising alarms of a possible war, reports our New Delhi correspondent.

Addressing the 16th meeting of the foreign ministers of Russia, China and India in the trilateral format in the Chinese city of Wuzhen, Swaraj justified yesterday's bombing.

She said it was done "in the light of continuing refusal of Pakistan to acknowledge and act against terror groups on its territory and based on credible information that Jaish-e-Mohammed was planning other attacks in various parts of India."

She made it clear that it was not a military operation and the target was selected in order to avoid civilian causalities and that no military installations were targeted.

"The limited objective of the pre-emptive strike was to act decisively against the terrorist infrastructure of JeM in order to pre-empt another terror attack in India," an official text of Swaraj's speech made available by the Indian External Affairs Ministry quoted her as saying.

"In the light of continuing refusal of Pakistan to acknowledge and act against terror groups on its territory, and based on credible information that JeM was planning other attacks in various parts of India, Government of India decided to take pre-emptive action," she remarked.

"India does not wish to see further escalation of the situation. India will continue to act with responsibility and restraint," Swaraj said.

She said terrorism tops the list of the existential threats that the world faces today. Pointing to the "recent heinous terrorist attack on our security forces in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir, perpetrated by Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Pakistan-based and supported terrorist organization proscribed by the United Nations and other countries. We lost more than 40 personnel from our Central Reserve Police Force while several others are injured seriously.

"Such dastardly terrorist attacks are a grim reminder for the need for all the countries to show zero tolerance to terrorism and take decisive action against it. Following the Pulwama terrorist attack, instead of taking seriously the calls by international community to act against Jaish-e-Mohammad and other terror groups based in Pakistan, Pakistan denied any knowledge of the attack and outrightly dismissed claims by Jaish-e-Mohammed," Swaraj said.