General Anil Chauhan appears to confirm India lost at least one aircraft during the brief conflict with Pakistan earlier this month.India’s chief of defence staff says the country suffered initial losses in the air during a recent military conflict with neighbouring Pakistan, but declined to give details.
“What was important is, why did these losses occur, and what we will do after that,” General Anil Chauhan told the Reuters news agency on Saturday on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue security forum in Singapore.
India and Pakistan were engaged in a four-day conflict this month, their worst standoff since 1999, before a ceasefire was agreed on May 10. More than 70 people were killed in missile, drone and artillery fire on both sides, but there are competing claims on the casualties.
India says more than 100 “terrorists” were killed in its “precision strikes” on several “terror camps” across Pakistan, which rejects the claim, saying more than 30 Pakistani civilians were killed in the Indian attacks.
New Delhi, meanwhile, says nearly two dozen civilians were killed on the Indian side, most of them in Indian-administered Kashmir, along the disputed border. Advertisement
The fighting between the two nuclear powers was triggered by an attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir on April 22 that killed 26 people, almost all of them tourists. New Delhi blamed Pakistan for supporting the armed group behind the attack, an allegation Islamabad denied.
During their conflict, Pakistan had also claimed to have downed at least five Indian m …