The chief of defense staff acknowledged some “mistakes” in the standoff but emphasized that New Delhi’s tactics were “rectified”
In his first interview with international media since the four-day military standoff with Islamabad last month, Chief of Defense Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan said on Saturday that India had changed its tactics after an initial “mistake” and established an advantage over Pakistan.
“What is important is not a jet being downed but why they were being downed. The good part is that we were able to understand the tactical mistakes that we’ve made, remediate, and rectify them, and implement them again — we flew all our jets, again targeting [sites in Pakistan] at long range,” General Chauhan told Bloomberg on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore, without providing any details regarding military losses.
When asked to respond to the Pakistani military’s claim that it had downed six Indian jets, he said it was “absolutely incorrect.”
India’s military confirmed for the first time that it lost an unspecified number of fighter jets in clashes with Pakistan in May.
Anil Chauhan, chief of defense staff of the Indian Armed Forces, spoke to Bloomberg TV on Saturday, while attending the Shangri-La Dialogue in… pic.twitter.com/9y3GW6WJfn
In another interview with Reuters, General Chauhan reiterated that India had switched tactics after suffering losses on the first day of the conflict, when it launched strikes against what it called “terrorist infrastructure” sites in Pakistan on May 7.
“What was important is, why did these losses occur, and what will we do after that?” he told Reuters. “So we rectified tactics and then went back on the 7th, 8th, and 10th in large numbers to hit air bases deep inside Pakistan, penetrated all their air defenses with impunity, and carried out precision strikes,” he added.
New Delhi has previously rejected Islamabad’s claims while refraining from commenting on alleged losses on its side.
“We are in a combat scenario; losses are a part of combat. The question you must ask us is… have we achieved our objective of decimating the terrorist camps? And the answer is a thumping yes. The results are for the whole world to see,” the Indian Air Force’s Director General of Air Operations (DGAO) Air Marshal Bharti said, commenting on allegations that warplanes were lost during the media briefing on May 11, a day after New Delhi and Islamabad announced a ceasefire.
India launched military action against targets in Pakistan on May 7 in response to the April 22 massacre of 26 people in Pahalgam, in India’s Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, which New Delhi blamed on an Islamabad-sponsored terrorist organization.
Islamabad denied any involvement in the attack, with top Pakistani officials claiming the country was itself a “victim of terrorism.”
