India lost some fighter jets on the first day of the recent conflict with Pakistan “only because of the constraint given by the political leadership to not attack the military establishment or their air defenses,” India’s defence attache to Indonesia, Captain (Indian Navy) Shiv Kumar said at a seminar in Jakarta.
India Lost Fighter Jets During Operation Sindoor Due To ‘Constraints’ On Hitting Military Targets, Says Navy Officer
The Indian Embassy in Indonesia issued a clarification stating that the remarks made by the attache were “taken out of context” and “misrepresented”.
The statement which was not yet released to the public came as a response to claims made by an Indonesian aerospace expert that the Indian Air Force (IAF) lost five fighter jets including three Rafales, one MiG-29 and a Sukhoi-30, a tactical drone and Pakistan degraded two S-400 launchers during Operation Sindoor.
The Chief of Defence, General Anil Chauhan had earlier stated in an interview with Bloomberg that “What is important is that–not the jet being down, but why they were being down.”
At the seminar on “Analysis of the Pakistan-India Air Battle and Indonesia’s Anticipatory Strategies from the Perspective of Air Power,” Captain Kumar said that “I may not agree with him that India lost so many aircraft. But I do agree that we did lose some aircraft.”
“After the loss, we changed our tactics and we went for the military installations. So we first achieved suppression of enemy air defences and then that’s why all our attacks could easily go through using Brahmos missiles,” he said.
The Indian Embassy in Indonesia released a statement on Sunday stating that the remarks made by the attache were “taken out of context” and “misrepresented”.
“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 said.
The clarification was issued after the Indian National Congress criticised the government misleading the nation on military losses suffered during a four-day conflict with Pakistan in May.
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