An Indian defence official has acknowledged that the country’s air force “lost several aircraft” on May 7 night when they initiated an unprovoked strike on civilian targets in Pakistan during the recent 86-hour conflict between the two nuclear-armed nations.
According to Indian media, Indian defense attaché Captain Shiv Kumar made the claim while speaking at a seminar hosted by Universitas Dirgantara Marsekal Suryadarma in Indonesia titled “Analysis of the Pakistan–India Air Battle and Indonesia’s Anticipatory Strategies from the Perspective of Air Power.”
Kumar attributed the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) losses to the limitations placed on it by the political establishment. He asserted that the Indian planes were instructed not to target Pakistani military installations.
The first formal recognition of air losses in the ongoing conflict came earlier when General Anil, the Chief of Defence Staff, confirmed the loss of fighter jets during the May clashes with Pakistan. In a Bloomberg Television interview conducted on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, he revealed the details.
He declined to provide an exact number of aircraft lost, though, and refuted Pakistan’s claim that six Indian jets were shot down. Chauhan remarked, “The reason they were down is more important than the jet being down.” “Numbers don’t matter.”
Subramanian Swamy, a senior member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), acknowledged on May 30 that Pakistan had shot down five Indian fighter jets, including Rafale aircraft. However, the number of fighter jets lost by the PAF is never discussed in India’s military circles.
