- The government of India previously refused to comment on the fate of lost planes.
- “We are able to understand the tactical error we have made,” says Chauhan.
- Chauhan’s remarks came during the interview at Shangri-La dialogue.
The army of India admitted, for the first time, that it had lost an unspecified number of fighter planes in its clashes with Pakistan at the beginning of the month.
Anil Chauhan, chief of the defense of the Indian armed forces, confirmed it during an interview with Bloomberg TV At Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore on Saturday.
Chauhan said: “What is important is not the broken down, but why they were slaughtered.” He added: “The right part is that we are able to understand the tactical error that we have committed, to remedy it, to rectify it, then to implement it after two days and to pilot all our jets again, targeting long distance.”
Chauhan’s remarks represent the first direct confirmation of an Indian official concerning the fate of his fighter planes during the conflict with Pakistan, who broke out on May 7.
Earlier this month, in response to India’s not caused attacks against innocent civilians in Pakistan, the Pakistani Air Force shot six Indian planes, including three burst of French-made hunting planes.
The Indian government had previously refused to comment if he had lost aircraft in the fighting.
One day earlier, the senior BJP, Subramanian Swamy, also admitted that Pakistan had shot down five IAF planes during the recent conflict.
Speaking in an interview, Swamy said that Indian planes had been defeated in air combat when Pakistan was deploying Chinese fighter planes, which outperformed the French manufacturing aircraft used by New Delhi.
“Pakistan killed five of our planes. They used Chinese planes to lower our planes, which were French,” Swamy said. “The Chinese planes were good, but the French were not. Rafale is not up to the needs of India,” he added, criticizing the performance of the Rafale jets very praised.
He then made a surprising complaint regarding the controversial Rafale agreement, alleging corruption in the supply process. “Corruption occurred in Rafale which will not be investigated until Modi is the Prime Minister,” he said firmly.
In addition, Chauhan also confirmed that the four-day conflict, the worst between nuclear weapons neighbors in half a century, never intensified to the point of nuclear war. The clashes involved both sides by exchanging air strikes, drones and missiles, as well as artillery and light arms shooting along their common border.
The conflict was launched by New Delhi after an attack in India illegally occupied the Jammu and the cashmere pahalgam on April 22, where armed men killed 26 civilians. India has described this an act of terrorism orchestrated by Pakistan, a complaint rejected by the leaders of Islamabad.