The Indian Air Force did not allow targeting Pakistani military installations
Indian Air Force jets were shot down in the battle against Pakistan.
Jakarta ( Web News)
India’s Defence Attaché in Indonesia has acknowledged that their Air Force jets were downed during the conflict with Pakistan, but he has offered a new explanation for it. According to the Indian website The Wire, Captain Shiv Kumar of the Indian Navy, serving as Defence Attaché in Indonesia, stated that the loss of fighter jets occurred because the political leadership did not permit the Air Force to attack Pakistani military installations or air defence systems.
A seminar titled “An Analysis of the Pakistan-India Aerial War and Indonesia’s Potential Strategy from an Air Power Perspective” was held on June 10 by a university in Indonesia. In a 35-minute presentation during the seminar, Captain Shiv Kumar admitted that while he might not fully agree (as claimed by an Indonesian speaker) that many aircraft were lost, he did agree that some aircraft were indeed lost. He added that during the initial phase of the aerial battle, the Indian Air Force suffered losses at the hands of the Pakistani military.
Pakistani officials had claimed to have downed six Indian fighter jets, including Rafales, while Indian authorities refrained from stating a specific number and confirmed only that some jets were lost.
India’s Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan later emphasized in Singapore that the core issue was not the downing of jets, but the reason why they were downed. In an interview with Bloomberg, he said, “The important thing is not that the jets fell, but why they fell.”
The Indian Defence Attaché further said that after suffering losses, they revised their strategy and moved towards targeting military installations. As a result, they were able to suppress the enemy’s air defences, which then allowed them to successfully conduct all attacks using BrahMos missiles. He was seemingly referring to the Indian attacks on various Pakistani Air Force bases on May 10.
The Indian Defence Attaché’s perspective sheds light on a key element: that the Air Force’s fighter jets were bound by the Modi government’s political directives not to target Pakistani military installations or air defence systems.
The purpose of this self-imposed restriction by the government was to prevent escalation of the conflict with a nuclear-armed neighbour.