Gen Anil Chauhan says Indian forces did not target Pakistan’s Kirana Hills during Operation Sindoor.
Chauhan says a loitering munition sent towards Sargodha may have struck one of the hills after failing to find a target.
The former CDS backs Air Marshal A K Bharti’s earlier clarification that India did not hit Kirana Hills.
Former Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan (retd) has said Indian forces did not target Pakistan’s Kirana Hills during Operation Sindoor, suggesting that a loitering munition sent towards Sargodha may have struck one of the hills after losing its running capacity.
Speaking at a talk on ‘Operation Sindoor and its Aftermath’ hosted by the Vivekananda International Foundation on Tuesday, Chauhan backed Air Marshal A K Bharti’s earlier clarification that India had not According to PTI, Chauhan said a large number of loitering munitions were sent towards Sargodha to search for radars in and around the area.
“There was a small episode about what Air Marshal Bharti was asked, the Kirana Hills episode. I think I'll clarify this. On occasions, it's been asked whether Kirana Hills were hit; that is where their (Pakistan's) nuclear facilities are,” Gen Chauhan (retd) said.
Chauhan said Bharti had “rightly clarified that we did not target Kirana Hills”.
Bharti, who was then the Director General of Air Operations (DGAO) of the IAF, had made the clarification while speaking to reporters on May 12 last year. He was asked about social media rumours that India had hit Kirana Hills, which reportedly housed a nuclear storage facility, during its counter-offensive against Pakistan.
“We have not hit Kirana hills, whatever is there,” Bharti had said. He retired as Deputy Chief of Air Staff on July 31.
Chauhan explained that Kirana Hills is around 10 km north of Sargodha, where Indian strikes during the military conflict hit an airbase. The loitering munitions sent towards Sargodha were intended to locate radars in and around the area, he said. According to PTI, he suggested that one of the munitions may have struck one of the hills after failing to find its intended target.
“I can, maybe give a kind of an explanation... Before those strikes, we had sent in a lot of loitering munitions to Sargodha, and Kirana Hills is about 10 km north of Sargodha. So the loitering munition is looking for radars which are in and around Sargodha, and it has a time span, which means it will loiter for about two hours, and once it does not find a target, it comes down and hits somewhere,” the former CDS said.
“It must have come and hit one of those hills. So that could be one of the reasons as to what people asked... Because Pakistani media also showed some images in which there was smoke coming out from Kirana Hills,” he added.
India conducted Operation Sindoor against nine terror infrastructure sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) in May 2025, killing over 100 terrorists to avenge the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack.
India’s strikes during the military conflict also hit an airbase in Sargodha. There were reports that the base was linked to an underground nuclear storage facility in the Kirana Hills.
Chauhan also said during the Vivekananda International Foundation event that Operation Sindoor is “still ongoing”, although major parts of the operation have concluded.
(With inputs from PTI)
