India’s defence attache to Indonesia made the comments at a June 10 event in response to claims that IAF had lost 5 fighter jets during Operation Sindoor
India lost some fighter jets on the opening day of the recent military confrontation with Pakistan due to initial restrictions imposed by the government on striking Pakistani military establishments and the orders were to hit only terror infrastructure in that country, India’s defence attache to Indonesia said at a seminar in Jakarta.
His hitherto unreported comments at the June 10 event were in response to claims made by an Indonesian aerospace expert that the Indian Air Force (IAF) lost five fighter jets — including three Rafales, one MiG-29 and a Sukhoi-30 — a tactical drone and Pakistan degraded two S-400 launchers during Operation Sindoor, India’s direct military response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror strike.
“I may not agree with him that India lost so many aircraft. But I do agree that we did lose some aircraft and that happened only because of the constraint given by the political leadership to not attack the military establishments and their air defences,” Captain Shiv Kumar, a navy officer, said. A navy captain is equivalent to a colonel in the army.
He described how India changed tack after the initial air losses to completely dominate Pakistan.
“After the loss, we changed our tactics and went for their military installations. We first achieved suppression of enemy air defences and destruction of enemy air defences (known as SEAD and DEAD in military parlance) and that’s why all our attacks could easily go through using surface-to-air missiles and surface-to-surface missiles…On May 8, 9 and 10, there was complete air superiority by India,” he said.
A defence ministry spokesperson declined to comment on Kumar’s remarks. However, the Indian embassy in Jakarta said in a statement that he was quoted “out of context”.
“..The media reports are a mis-representation of the intention and thrust of the presentation made by the speaker. The presentation conveyed that the Indian Armed Forces serve under civilian political leadership unlike some other countries in our neighbourhood. It was also explained that the objective of Operation Sindoor was to target terrorist infrastructure and the Indian response was non-escalatory,” it said.
Kumar’s comments came a month after chief of defence staff General Anil Chauhan said in Singapore on May 31 that India lost fighter planes on May 7 due to tactical mistakes that were swiftly rectified before the IAF returned in big numbers and carried out precision strikes deep inside the neighbouring country by punching through its air defences.
To be sure, the government has not yet officially responded to statements by senior defence officials on loss of aircraft during the conflict.
In his 35-minute presentation, Kumar said the only constraint the government gave to the armed forces was “not to target anything but terrorist camps”.
“No military installations, no civil installations…Nothing which was not connected to terrorists was to be targeted,” he said at the seminar on Analysis of the Pakistan-India Air Battle and Indonesia’s Anticipatory Strategies from the Perspective of Air Power.
India launched Operation Sindoor in the early hours of May 7 and struck terror and military installations in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) following the Pahalgam terror strike in which 26 people were shot dead.
It triggered a four-day military confrontation with Pakistan involving fighter jets, missiles, drones, long-range weapons and heavy artillery before the two sides reached an understanding on stopping all military action on May 10.
India lost three Rafale fighter jets because of “vulnerabilities exposed due to AWACS (airborne warning and control systems) disconnection,” claimed Tommy Tamtomo, vice-chairman, Indonesia Center for Air Power Studies.
“India lost a lot, but Pakistan also lost a lot. Maybe more than India,” he said at the seminar.
Pakistani air losses included six fighter jets, two AWACS aircraft and a military transport plane, Tamtomo said.
The Congress party on Sunday questioned why has the government not convened a special session of Parliament on Operation Sindoor.
