India shot down a few high-tech fighter jets of the Pakistan Air Force during Operation Sindoor and the Indian Air Force is poring over the technical details to establish the hits, a top IAF officer said on Sunday while indicating that there were combat losses on the Indian side too but the fighter pilots were back home.
“We don’t have the wreckage as their (PAF) planes were prevented from entering our airspace. But we have downed a few planes. I have the numbers, and we are getting into the technical details to establish it. But I would not like reveal the figure at this time,” said Air Marshal AK Bharti, director general air operations.
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Bharti and his counterparts from the two services, Lieutenant General Rajiv Ghai and Vice Admiral AN Pramod, briefed journalists on Operation Sindoor –– New Delhi’s direct military response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror strike that killed 26 people.
Asked if IAF suffered losses, Bharti said losses were a part of combat without commenting on what aircraft India lost as that information could give advantage to the enemy.
“We are in a combat scenario; losses are a part of combat,” he said. This is the first official comment on the loss of Indian fighter jets during the operation in which the IAF struck terror infrastructure, hit several PAF bases, and attacked and destroyed some of the neighbouring military’s air defence sites.
“The question you must ask is if have we achieved our objective of decimating the terrorist camps. The answer is a thumping yes, and the results are for the world to see. As for the details…what could have been, how many numbers…which platform did we lose…I would not like to comment on that because we are still in a combat situation. If I do, it will only be –– advantage adversary. All I can say is that we have achieved our objectives and all our pilots are back home,” he said.
The comments came a day after a day after India and Pakistan agreed to stop all military actions against each other, ending four days of fierce fighting across the western border. However, by late Saturday evening, there were enough violations by Pakistan to evoke a strong statement from India.
The agreement to stop all military actions came after Ghai and his Pakistani counterpart spoke over hotline on Saturday.
Ghai will talk to his Pakistani counterpart on Monday to discuss the modalities that would enable the longevity of the understanding on the cessation of hostilities, though the neighbouring army violated it by opening artillery fire along the Line of Control (LoC) and drone intrusions across the western border till Sunday morning.
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“Disappointingly and should I add expectedly, it took only a couple of hours for the Pakistan Army to violate these arrangements by cross border and LoC firing followed by drone intrusions across the expanse of the western front through Saturday night and in the early hours of Sunday,” he said.
A hotline message was sent to the Pakistani director general of military operations (DGMO) warning him of a “fierce and punitive” Indian response if the violations are repeated on Sunday night or later.
On Sunday, army chief General Upendra Dwivedi granted full authority to his Army Commanders for counteraction in the kinetic domain to any violation of the understanding reached after the May 10 DGMO talks.
Ghai said 35-40 Pakistani soldiers were killed in firing along the LoC during the last four days, while the Indian Army lost five soldiers. The four-day confrontation represented the worst face-off between the two nuclear-armed neighbours in decades and stoked fears of a full-blown shooting war.
Operation Sindoor began on Wednesday with India achieving its intended target; it hit nine terror training camps in Pakistan and PoK, the precision strikes killing more than 100 terrorists in just 26 minutes.
“It was conceptualised with a clear military aim to punish the perpetrators and planners of terror and to destroy terror infrastructure. It set into motion a very diligent and microscopic scouring of the terror landscape across the borders and the identification of terror camps and training sites,” Ghai said. The targets were selected after scrutiny, factoring in their layout, configuration, even the type of construction in each structure and the terrain, with the obvious intent to deduce the exact weapon that was required for their neutralization, the Indian DGMO said.
“We also undertook certain measures such as deployment of air defence and electronic warfare assets to establish an integrated grid with the IAF…the benefits of such an architecture helped combat air intrusions. We also carried out deployment to include movement of our forces in the land, sea and air domain,” Ghai said.
The IAF played a major part in these strikes by engaging some of the camps and the navy provided wherewithal in terms of precision munitions, he said.
“By integrating the IAF and army air defence networks, we further strengthened our deployment and initiated some pressure points to send a very clear and unambiguous message to the other side to desist from any misadventure on land,” he said.
The Indian forces have thus far exercised immense restraint and their actions have been “focused, measured and non-escalatory.” “However, any threat to the sovereignty, territorial integrity, or safety of our citizens will be met with decisive force,” Ghai said.
Asked if Pakistan could use the ceasefire understanding as a cover build its war reserves, Ghai said, “What pauses means during these conflicts is known to everybody. I don’t want to go into the pros and cons of how preparation for war is done. I am not so concerned about what Pakistan will do in this time. I am only concerned about what we will do. We have a roadmap, and we will follow it diligently,” he added.
The India Navy remains deployed at sea in a credible deterrent posture to respond decisively to any inimical action by Pakistan, or Pakistan-based terrorist groups, said Pramod, who is the director general of naval operations.
“Along with kinetic actions by the army and IAF, the overwhelming operational edge of Indian Navy at sea, contributed towards Pakistan’s urgent request for a ceasefire on Saturday.”
In the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack, the navy’s carrier battle group, surface forces, submarines and aviation assets were immediately deployed at sea with full combat readiness, he said. “We tested and refined tactics and procedures at sea during multiple weapon firings in the Arabian Sea within 96 hours of the terror attack. The aim was to revalidate our crew, armament, equipment and platform readiness to deliver various ordnance on selected targets precisely.”
“Our forces remained forward deployed in the northern Arabian Sea in a deterrent posture, with full readiness and capacity to strike select targets at sea, and on land, including Karachi, at the time of our choosing,” Pramod added.