New Delhi (TDI): India’s military has admitted, for the first time, that it lost an unspecified number of fighter aircrafts in its military clash with Pakistan earlier this month.
Chief of the Defense Staff of the Indian Armed Forces Anil Chauhan confirmed this during an interview with Bloomberg TV at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday.
Chauhan stated, “What is important is not the fighter aircrafts being down, but why they were being downed.” 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 planes again, targeting at long range.”
Chauhan’s comments represent the first direct confirmation from an Indian official regarding the fate of its fighter aircrafts during the clash with Pakistan, which erupted on May 7.
Earlier this month, in response to India’s unprovoked strikes on innocent civilians in Pakistan, the Pakistan Air Force downed 6 Indian jets, including three French-made Rafale fighter aircrafts.
India’s government had previously declined to comment on whether it lost jet in the clash.
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A day earlier, senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy also acknowledged that Pakistan shot down 5 IAF aircrafts during the recent clash.
Speaking in an interview, Swamy stated that the Indian jets were defeated in air combat as Pakistan deployed Chinese fighter aircrafts, which outperformed the French-made jet used by India.
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“Pakistan downed five of our aircrafts. They used Chinese jets to down our aircrafts, which were French,” Swamy said. “The Chinese jets were good, but the French were not. Rafale is not up to the mark as per New Delhi’s requirements,” he added, criticizing the performance of the highly-touted Rafale planes.
Farkhund Yousafzai is an Associate Editor at The Diplomatic Insight.
