Row over Indian defence attache’s reported 'lost jets during Operation Sindoor' remark

A controversy has erupted over the remarks by the Indian defence attache in Indonesia suggesting that the Indian Air Force lost fighter jets in the initial phase of Operation Sindoor as it was constrained by the mandate not to attack Pakistani military establishment and only target terrorist infrastructure.

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As the purported video of the remarks made by Captain Shiv Kumar on June 10 at a gathering surfaced on Sunday, the Indian embassy in Jakarta said the officer only stated the fact that the Indian armed forces serve under political leadership, unlike some other countries in India's neighbourhood.

The Indian Navy officer was speaking at a seminar on ‘Analysis of the Pakistan-India Air Battle and Indonesia's Anticipatory Strategies from the Perspective of Air Power’ at a university in Jakarta.

The opposition Congress on Sunday cited the reported comments by the defence attache on the loss of aircraft to accuse the government of having "misled" the country.

However, the Indian embassy said in a social media post, "His 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 said.

The embassy said it was explained that the objective of Operation Sindoor was to target terrorist infrastructure and the Indian response was non-escalatory.

In his presentation, the Indian defence attache said in view of some "constraints" owing to the mandate decided by the "political leadership", the Indian Air Force could not attack Pakistani military installations in the initial phase operation.

"We did lose some aircraft and that happened only because of the constraint given by the political leadership not to attack the military establishment or their air defence system," he said.

"But after the loss, we changed our tactics and went for the military installations. So we first achieved suppression and destruction of enemy air defence and then that is why all our attacks could easily go through using surface-to-air missiles and Brahmos surface-to-surface missiles," he said.

Around a month back, Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan said in Singapore that India rectified tactics and hit deep inside Pakistani territory after suffering losses of aircraft in the recent military clashes with Pakistan.

The Chief of Defence Staff did not specify the losses in terms of a number of platforms.

India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terrorist infrastructure in territories controlled by Pakistan in response to the Pahalgam terror attack.

The strikes triggered four days of intense clashes that ended with an understanding on stopping the military actions on May 10.

After the strikes at the terror infrastructure, India informed Pakistan that it does not want to escalate the situation and the strikes were aimed at terrorist bases.

But as Pakistan launched a military retaliation, India responded to it strongly.