CNN
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India’s military has acknowledged for the first time that an unspecified number of its fighter jets were shot down during strikes on Pakistani-controlled territory amid intense fighting between the neighbors in early May.
Indian officials had previously refused to confirm even a single aircraft loss.
Asked by a Bloomberg correspondent on Saturday if Pakistan was correct in its claim that “six Indian jets” were downed, Anil Chauhan, the chief of defense staff of the Indian Armed Forces, initially denied the veracity of the claim, stating: “Absolutely incorrect and that is not information which, as I said, is important.”
But he went on to say that “what is important is why they went down,” seeming to imply that a number of jets were shot down during fighting between the historic foes, although not confirming how many. “That is more important for us. And what did we do after that? That’s more important,” he said, speaking to Bloomberg’s Haslinda Amin while attending the Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier defense forum, in Singapore.
The official also accepted that India’s military had made a “tactical mistake,” in response to another question about Pakistan’s claim.
“The good part is we were able to understand the tactical mistake which we made, remedy it, rectify it and then implement it again after two days and flew all our jets, again targeting at long range,” he said.
Pakistan claimed its pilots shot down five Indian fighter jets in aerial battles – including three advanced French-made Rafales – after India launched its military operation against Pakistan in early May. Pakistan said it used Chinese-made fighter jets to shoot down the Indian combat aircraft, including the Rafales.
India initially denied the claims, with Nalin Kohli, spokesperson for India’s Bharatiya Janata Party, telling CNN that “if that was the case, and if something of that extent had happened, we would have said so.”
A high-ranking French intelligence official told CNN at the time that one Rafale fighter jet operated by the Indian Air Force had been downed by Pakistan, and that French authorities were looking into whether more than one was brought down. Indian eyewitnesses also told CNN they saw one aircraft plunging from the sky in flames.
The fighting was a major escalation between the South Asian neighbors and came in response to the killing of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir in April. India blamed Pakistan for the attack, an accusation rejected by Islamabad. A truce between Islamabad and New Delhi was announced on May 10.
CNN’s Benjamin Brown, Matthew Chance, Sophia Saifi and Saskya Vandoorne contributed to this report.
