NEW DELHI: IAF lost some fighter jets when it conducted strikes on nine terror hubs in Pakistan and PoK on May 7 because India’s political leadership had directed that no military establishments or air defences across the border were to be attacked on that day, India’s defence attache to Indonesia, Captain Shiv Kumar, said at a seminar earlier this month.The remarks by Captain Kumar, who is a colonel-rank officer from the Navy, followed an acknowledgment of IAF’s initial losses by Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan on May 31 in Singapore but he did not specify the exact number of fighters shot down.Modi govt is yet to officially quantify IAF’s losses during Operation Sindoor. Pakistan has claimed to have shot down six Indian fighters, including three French-origin Rafales, on May 7 itself – an assertion that CDS Chauhan dubbed as “absolutely incorrect”.
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Captain Kumar’s comments led Congress to renew its attack on govt over its handling of Operation Sindoor. Speaking at a seminar on ‘Analysis of the Pakistan-India Air Battle and Indonesia’s Anticipatory Strategies from the Perspective of Air Power’ on June 10, Capt Kumar said he “may not agree (with an earlier Indonesian speaker’s claim) that we lost so many aircraft, but I do agree we did lose some aircraft and that happened only because of the constraint given by the political leadership to not attack their military establishments and air defences”.“After the loss, we changed our tactics and we went for the military installations (and radar sites). So, we first achieved suppression of enemy air defences and then that’s why all our attacks could easily go through using Brahmos missiles (on May 10),” he further said, his comments being in line with CDS Chauhan’s statement in May that after initial losses, Indian armed forces took remedial measures and were able to carry out precision strikes at Pakistan’s airbases.After Capt Kumar’s 20-day-old remarks came to light and were cited by Congress to criticise govt, Indian embassy in Indonesia said Capt Kumar’s remarks “have been quoted out of context and the media reports are a mis-representation of the intention and thrust of the presentation made by the speaker”.“The presentation conveyed that the Indian armed forces serve under civilian political leadership, unlike some other countries in our neighbourhood. It was also explained that the objective of Operation Sindoor was to target terrorist infrastructure and the Indian response was non-escalatory,” it posted on X. Earlier, the CDS had said in Singapore, “What I can say is that on May 7, in the initial stages, there were losses. Numbers are not important. What was important is why did these losses occur, and what we will do after that.”
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