Pak Army lost 35-40 men at LoC, its Air Force a few aircraft: India Armed Forces
NEW DELHI - The Pakistan Army lost 35-40 personnel along the Line of Control in heavy crossfire over the last few days, and the Pakistan Air Force lost “a few” aircraft, apart from suffering massive damage to assets and air bases during retaliatory high-precision strikes by Indian armed forces as part of Operation Sindoor.
These details were made public Sunday, a day after the announcement of an end to military actions by the two countries, at a media briefing by Director General of Military Operations Lt General Rajiv Ghai and his Indian Air Force and Navy counterparts, Air Marshal A K Bharti and Vice Admiral A N Pramod.
Lt General Ghai said 100 terrorists were killed on the first day of Operation Sindoor when India struck nine terror hubs and these included high-value targets such as Yusuf Azhar and Muddasir involved in the hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 and the Pulwama blast.
In the subsequent days, the Pakistan Army, he said, lost 35-40 personnel in artillery and small arms firing along the LoC between May 7 and May 10. Five of the nine terror hubs were in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and the rest were in Pakistan.
Air Marshal Bharti said the IAF successfully prevented PAF aircraft from entering India and downed “a few planes”. He said he would not want to comment on the number of PAF aircraft lost as technical details were still being studied.
“Definitely, there are losses on their side, which we have inflicted,” he said, adding that they were “hi-tech” aircraft. On the damages caused to the Pakistani military infrastructure, he said the Pasrur air defence radar, Chunian air defence radar, Arifwala air defence radar, Sargodha airfield, Rahim Yar Khan airfield, the airfields at the Nur Khan air base in Chaklala, Sukkur, Bholari, Jacobabad were among those destroyed by Indian precision strike weapons.
On the Indian side, five military personnel were killed in Operation Sindoor, the officers said.
Responding to a question, Air Marshal Bharti said he would not like to comment on whether India lost any aircraft in Operation Sindoor due to the prevailing combat situation. He said losses were part of any combat, and the Indian military had achieved all its selected objectives and all IAF pilots were back home.
“If they had a choice, they would have definitely come in. Their fighters, UCAVs. It is not that they did not intend to come in. Our robust air defence posture prevented them from coming in,” he said.
Vice Admiral Pramod said soon after the Pahalgam terror attack, the Navy’s carrier battle group, surface forces, submarines and aviation assets were deployed at sea in full combat readiness, in concert with the joint operational plan of the Indian military.
He said naval forces remain in forward deployment in the northern Arabian Sea in a dissuasive and deterrent posture, with full readiness and capacity to “strike select targets at sea, and on land, including Karachi,” at a time of India’s choosing.
He said the forward deployment of the Navy compelled Pakistani naval and air units to be in a defensive posture, mostly inside harbours or very close to their coast, and were constantly monitored by the Indian Navy.
On the ceasefire across domains that was agreed upon by the DGMOs and its violation within hours by the Pakistani side, Lt General Ghai said that “disappointingly” and “expectedly”, it took only a couple of hours for the Pakistan Army to violate these arrangements with cross-border and LoC firing, followed by drone intrusions across the expanse of the western front through Saturday night and Sunday morning.
“We sent a communique to the Pakistan DGMO and we will await what happens tonight,” he said.
He also said Army chief General Upendra Dwivedi conducted a security review Sunday and granted full authority to Army commanders to counter actions in the kinetic domain in case of any violation by Pakistan. “The response will be fierce and punitive,” he said.