New Delhi: India’s military confirmed for the first time that it lost an unspecified number of fighter jets in clashes with Pakistan in May, while saying the four-day conflict never came close to the point of nuclear war.
“What is important is that, not the jet being down, but why they were being down,” Anil Chauhan, chief of defence staff of the Indian Armed Forces, said in an interview with Bloomberg TV on Saturday, while attending the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.
He called Pakistan’s claims that it shot down six Indian warplanes “absolutely incorrect,” though declined to specify how many jets India lost.
“Why they were down, what mistakes were made – that are important,” General Chauhan said when asked about the fighter jets. “Numbers are not important,” he added.
“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,” General Chauhan said.
The comments are the most direct yet from an Indian government or military official on the fate of the country’s 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, an assertion that hasn’t been independently verified. India’s government had earlier refrained from commenting on whether it lost aircraft in the fighting.
General 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,” General Chauhan 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.
