SINGAPORE: An Indian Army General on Saturday confirmed that they lost an unspecified number of fighter jets in clashes with Pakistan last month.
In an interview with Bloomberg TV at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Chief of Defense Staff of the Indian Armed Forces, Anil Chauhan, said, “What is important is that, not the jet being down, but why they were being down.”
He said that the four-day conflict with Pakistan never came close to the point of nuclear war.
During an interview, the Indian four-star officer rejected Pakistan’s claims of shooting down six Indian warplanes, though he declined to specify how many jets India lost.
“Why they were down, what mistakes were made — that are important,” 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 fly all our jets again, targeting at long range,” Chauhan told Bloomberg TV.
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. India’s government had earlier refrained from commenting on whether it lost aircraft in the fighting.
