Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan Saturday admitted losses of Indian aircraft in recent confrontation with Pakistan during Operation Sindoor but rejected as “absolutely incorrect” Islamabad’s claim of downing six jets.
The Indian strikes were carried out under Operation Sindoor – a targeted military attack on terror infrastructures in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) in response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 people died.
Chauhan also said the four-day confrontation never came close to the point of nuclear war.
In an interview with Bloomberg TV on Saturday, while attending the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Chauhan said, “What is important is that, not the jet being down, but why they were being down.”
The Chief of Defence Staff dismissed Pakistan’s claims that it shot down six Indian warplanes “absolutely incorrect,” though declined to specify how many jets India lost.
“Why they were down, what mistakes were made — that are important,” Chauhan said when asked about the fighter jets. “Numbers are not important,” he added.
“The good part is that we are able to understand the tactical mistake which we made, remedy it, rectify it, and then implement it again after two days and flew all our jets again, targeting at long range,” the Chief of Defence Staff said.
Earlier, on May 11, Director General Air Operations Air Marshal Bharti, when commenting on Aircraft losses, had said, “I can’t comment about loss of Aircraft as we are in a combat scenario and losses are part of combat”.
After India carried out strikes on Terror bases in Pakistan, the Pakistani side responded by attempting to target Defence and civilian installations in India. India then carried out another series of precision attacks, which saw the destruction of several Pakistani air bases. An understanding on the cessation of hostilities was then reached between the two sides on May 10.
Source: The statesman