CDS Anil Chauhan Acknowledges Loss of Indian Jets During Operation Sindoor, Sparks Calls for Official Review
Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan has indicated that India lost fighter jets during the May 8 aerial engagement with Pakistan as part of Operation Sindoor, in what is the first such public admission by a top defence official.
In an interview with Bloomberg TV in Singapore, General Chauhan was asked directly whether India lost any jets during the skirmish with the Pakistan Air Force. After initial hesitation, he replied, “Yes,” confirming the downing of at least one aircraft.
Pressed further, he added, “Yeah,” when asked again if a jet was indeed shot down. However, he declined to specify the aircraft type—whether Rafale, MiG, or Sukhoi—that may have been lost in the engagement.
Tactical Reflection on Damage
General Chauhan downplayed the significance of the jet losses, saying,
“What is important is not that the jets went down, but why they went down.”
He emphasized that the Indian Air Force had learned critical lessons from the incident, saying mistakes were identified, corrected, and operations resumed just two days later with improved strategy and execution.
“We understood the tactical mistake, rectified it, and went back to flying with precision and long-range targeting capabilities,” he explained.
Denies Pakistan’s Claims
Chauhan strongly dismissed Pakistan’s claims of downing six Indian aircraft during the operation, calling them “absolutely incorrect.”
“That’s not the kind of information that matters. What’s important for us is why the aircraft went down and what we did in response,” he reiterated.
Political Response and Call for Review Committee
Following the interview, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh shared a clip of the conversation on social media and urged the Modi government to establish an independent review committee, similar to the Kargil Review Committee formed in 1999 by the Vajpayee government.
“On July 29, 1999, the Vajpayee government set up the Kargil Review Committee under K. Subrahmanyam, just three days after the war ended,” Ramesh wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“The report—‘From Surprise to Reckoning’—was tabled in Parliament in February 2000. Will the Modi government now initiate a similar step, in light of what the Chief of Defence Staff has just revealed in Singapore?”
The call for a review signals growing demands for transparency and accountability surrounding Operation Sindoor, particularly after the CDS’s confirmation of aircraft losses—a detail previously unacknowledged in official narratives.
