NEW DELHI, July 8: Refusing to answer questions on losses suffered during Operation Sindoor, defence secretary RK Singh on Tuesday said it was incorrect to say that India’s Rafale fighter jets were shot down by Pakistan.
Singh stressed that Pakistan suffered far more losses than India, particularly “100 terrorists”, when the armed forces carried out strikes on terror targets.
“You have used the term Rafales in the plural, I can assure you that is absolutely not correct. Pakistan suffered losses many times over India in both human and material terms and more than 100 terrorists,” Singh said.
Singh’s statement comes after the Indian defence attaché in Indonesia suggested that the Indian Air Force lost fighter jets in the initial phase of Operation Sindoor. He further clarified that the armed forces have full operational freedom in conflict.
“No political constraints on our armed forces and they have full operational freedom in conflict,” he was quoted.
Media reports had quoted Captain (Indian Navy) Shiv Kumar, who recently spoke at a seminar in Indonesia, that the air force lost fighter jets to Pakistan on May 7 night while targeting terror-linked sites in Pakistan under Operation Sindoor.
The Indian embassy in Indonesia issued a statement saying Kumar’s remarks were taken out of context and are a “misrepresentation” of his presentation. It said the defence attaché’s presentation conveyed that the IAF 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.
India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, targeting terrorist infrastructure in territories controlled by Pakistan using long-range weapons in response to the Pahalgam terror attack. The strikes triggered four days of intense clashes that ended with an understanding on stopping the military actions on May 10.
Four days of the military standoff were the most serious confrontation in years between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, and included air combat that involved dozens of aircraft from both sides. Military officials and researchers have since been digging for details of how Pakistan’s Chinese-made military hardware – particularly warplanes and air-combat missiles – fared against weaponry that India used in airstrikes on Pakistani targets, notably French-made Rafale fighters.
It has also come to light that Pakistan and China allegedly ran a joint psychological operation to target the French-made Rafale fighter jets acquired by India. Findings from a French intelligence service revealed that China deployed its embassies to spread doubts about the performance of French-made Rafale jets after they were used during Operation Sindoor.
Pakistan had claimed its air force downed five Indian planes during the fighting, including three Rafales. India acknowledged aircraft losses but did not say how many.
French officials have been battling to protect the plane from reputational damage, pushing back against what they allege was a concerted campaign of Rafale-bashing and disinformation online from Pakistan and its ally China. They said the campaign included viral posts on social media, manipulated imagery showing supposed Rafale debris, AI-generated content and video-game depictions to simulate supposed combat.
(Manas Dasgupta)
