New Delhi: The Indian embassy in Indonesia on Sunday clarified that the remarks made by its defence attache regarding the Operation Sindoor was quoted out of context and misrepresented. Captain Shiv Kumar, the defence attache, said that India lost some fighter jets to Pakistan during the recent military conflict between the two countries due to political constraints.
India carried out airstrikes targeting terror facilities in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on May 7 days after the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam that claimed 26 innocent lives. The government made it clear that the action was “precise, measured and non-escalatory,” targeting only terror-related infrastructure and installations involved in planning or supporting cross-border attacks.
On April 22, Pakistan-backed terrorists stormed the Pahalgam tourist spot, asked people their religion, and killed them, resulting in 26 deaths. In response, India launched ‘Operation Sindoor’ to destroy the terror bases behind the attack.
Speaking at a seminar in Jakarta on the military operation, Captain Shiv Kumar said that on the opening day of the military confrontation, Indian Air Force (IAF) lost its fighter jets as the government initially refrained them from hitting Pakistani military establishments and ordered them to only strike terror infrastructure in that country.
“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. He further said that after the loss, India changed its tactics and went for their military installations.
The Indian embassy in Jakarta, however, later said in a statement that media reports have “quoted out of context” a presentation made by the defence attache. “His remarks have been quoted out of context and 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.
