Indian defence chief minister admits to losing fighter jets in recent Pakistan conflict

The Indian military has confirmed losing an unspecified number of fighter jets in the May clashes with Pakistan but said the four-day conflict never came close to becoming a conflict.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV on Saturday, Anil Chauhan, chief of defence staff of the Indian Armed Forces, said the focus should not be on the jets being blown out of the skies, but rather on why that was happening.

He dismissed Pakistan’s claims that it shot down six Indian warplanes as “absolutely incorrect”, but declined to mention how many jets India lost, reports bdnews24.com.

“Why they were down, what mistakes were made - that are important... Numbers are not important,” Chauhan was quoted as saying by The Times of India when asked about the fighter jets.

“The good part is that we are able to understand the tactical mistake which we made, remedy it, rectify it, and then implement it again after two days and flew all our jets again, targeting at long range,” he said.

The comments are the most direct yet from an Indian government or military official on what happened to the fighter jets during the conflict with Pakistan that erupted on May 7.

Earlier this month, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said his country shot down six Indian fighter jets. The assertion has not been independently verified. India’s government had refrained from commenting on losing any aircraft.

The recent conflict marked the worst between the nuclear-armed neighbours in half a century, with both sides trading air, drone and missile strikes, as well as artillery and small arms fire along their shared border.

On Apr 22, a suspected militant attack in India-controlled Kashmir killed 26 civilians, including tourists. India called the attack an act of terrorism orchestrated by Pakistan, though Islamabad denied any involvement.

Chauhan declined to comment on President Donald Trump’s claim that the US helped to avert a nuclear war, but said it was “far-fetched” to suggest either side was close to using atomic weapons.

“I personally feel that there is a lot of space between conduct of conventional operations and the nuclear threshold,” he said.

Channels of communication with Pakistan “were always open” to control the situation, he added, noting that on the escalation ladder there were “more sub-ladders which can be exploited for settling out our issues” without needing to resort to nuclear weapons.

Chauhan also downplayed Pakistan’s claims about the effectiveness of weaponry deployed from China and other countries, saying they “didn’t work.”

“We were able to do precision strikes on heavily air-defended airfields of Pakistan deep 300km inside, with the precision of a metre,” the Indian military chief said.