The comments made by Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Gen. Anil Chauhan, in an interview with an international media outlet, on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore last month, triggered a flurry of sharp reactions from various quarters in India. Responding to the queries about the losses on the Indian side during Operation Sindoor, Gen. Chauhan confirmed what the Director General of Air Operations, Air Marshal A.K. Bharti, had alluded to at a joint briefing on May 11.
“We are in a combat scenario, losses are a part of combat. The question you must ask us is...have we achieved our objective of decimating the terrorist camps? And the answer is a thumping yes!,” Air Marshal Bharti had said, not disclosing the exact details of the losses. Gen. Chauhan echoed the same in Singapore. “What I can say is that on May 7, in the initial stages, there were losses, but the numbers — that’s not important. What was important is why did these losses occur. So, we rectified that and then went back on 7th, 8th and 10th,” he said.
