Pak sought 48 hrs, we finished job in 8: CDS Chauhan

Hindustan Times

04-06-2025

Pakistan's Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos, which was mounted in response to India's Operation Sindoor, 'folded in eight hours' on May 10 belying Islamabad's ambitious target of bringing India to its knees in 48 hours, chief of defence staff General Anil Chauhan said on Tuesday, adding that losses suffered in a military conflict are not as important as the targeted outcome of an operation.
'On the 10th of May, at about 1am, its (Pakistan's) aim was to get India to its knees in 48 hours. Multiple attacks were launched and... They escalated this conflict...we actually hit only terror targets, but (Pakistan) also (got) into the military domain. From their perspective it would have been rational, in the sense, they would have said you used military means to hit these (terror) targets. But it was also rational on their part that operations, which they thought would continue for 48 hours, folded up in about 8 hours...Then they picked up the telephone and said they wanted to talk,' he said.
Chauhan made the comments during a special lecture on Future Wars and Warfare, organised by the Department of Defence and Strategic Studies at Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU).
HT was the first to report on May 24 that the May 10 Pakistani effort lasted just eight hours with Islamabad desperately calling the US to intervene on its behalf for a ceasefire, after four major air strikes by the Indian Air Force (IAF) pulverised airbases, air assets and air defences of the enemy.
The decision to fold up operations in eight hours may have stemmed from two things, Chauhan said.
'One, they must have assumed that if they continued, they were likely to lose much more. Hence, they picked up the telephone. And the second thing is that since they had stuck us at multiple fronts, they still did not have the benefit of understanding what they had stuck...So they must have thought that they must have struck and hence it's time to talk. If they didn't, they would lose more,' the CDS said.
His comments on the losses during Operation Sindoor come days after his remarks at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, where he acknowledged that India had suffered some setbacks.
India lost fighter jets on the opening day of the May 7-10 military confrontation with Pakistan due to tactical mistakes that were swiftly rectified before the IAF returned in big numbers and carried out precision strikes deep inside the neighbouring country, he said in Singapore on May 31. 'What is important is not the jet being down, but why they were being downed. What mistakes were made — those are important. Numbers are not important. The good part is that we were able to understand the tactical mistake which we made, remedy it, rectify it, and then implement it again after two days and flew our jets again, targeting at long range,' a Bloomberg report quoted the CDS as saying then.
On Tuesday, he elaborated on the point. 'When I was asked about losses on our side, I said these are not important. The results and how you act is important. It would not be very correct to talk about losses...Suppose you go in a cricket test match, and you win by innings defeat, then there's no question of how many wickets, how many balls and how many players,' he said.
But given the curiosity around the matter, India will soon come out with numbers to show the damage it inflicted on Pakistan, he said.
'Based on technical parameters such as electronic intelligence and signal intelligence, we will take out this particular data and share it with you. We will tell you how many aircraft we destroyed and how many radars we destroyed. We'll make a rough assessment of that and come out with that shortly,' he added.
The IAF shot down a few high-tech fighter jets of the Pakistan Air Force during Operation Sindoor. It is poring over the technical details to establish the hits, Air Marshal AK Bharti, director general air operations, said at a media briefing on May 11, a day after the two sides reached an understanding on stopping all military action. HT reported on May 24 that India's S-400 air defence system in Adampur went into action no less than 11 times and destroyed a Pakistani Saab-2000 Erieye airborne early warning system as far as 315 km deep inside Pakistan, and the IAF has proof of its missiles having downed at least one C-130 J aircraft, a JF-17 jet and two F-16 fighters on ground and in the air.
On Tuesday, some media reports said an ongoing analysis of the damage caused indicates that Pakistan lost six fighter jets and other aerial assets mentioned in the HT report.
Operation Sindoor was India's direct military response to the April 22 terror strike at Pahalgam in Kashmir that killed 26 civilians in what was the worst attack on civilians since the 26/11 Mumbai strikes.
India launched the operation in the early hours of May 7, bombing nine terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). The pre-dawn strikes --- which killed at least 100 terrorists --- sparked four days of strikes and counterstrikes with fighter jets, missiles, drones, long-range weapons and heavy artillery. Between the launch of the operation in the early hours of May 7 and the ceasefire on the evening of May 10, Indian forces bombed nine terror camps in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, killing at least 100 terrorists, and the IAF struck targets at 13 Pakistani air bases and military installations.
On Tuesday, it emerged that India's targeting of locations within Pakistan during the four-day clash was more extensive than was previously known, with a Pakistani document acknowledging that Indian drones had struck locations ranging from Peshawar in the northwest to Hyderabad in the south.
Chauhan also spoke about the broader nature of global conflict. 'Professional military forces are not affected by setbacks and losses in a war. What is important is that the morale needs to remain high even if there are setbacks.'
'Adaptability is an important constituent of a very professional force. You should be able to understand what went wrong, rectify your mistake, and go again. You cannot sit down in fear,' he said.
On the swiftness and impact of India's precision strikes, he said the Indian armed forces have 'raised the bar' in the fight against terrorism.
'We have drawn a new line of military operations against terror. We've connected terrorism to critical resources — like water — and demonstrated that Pakistan's strategy to bleed India by a thousand cuts will no longer go unanswered,' he said.
He accused Pakistan Army chief General Asim Munir of 'spewing venom against India,' days before the Pahalgam terror attack. Just days before the April 22 strike, Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir, recently promoted to field marshal, stirred controversy by reviving the two-nation theory, the ideological foundation of Pakistan's creation, and urging Pakistani citizens to teach their children that they are 'different from Hindus.' He also described the Kashmir issue as Pakistan's 'jugular vein.'
During his lecture, CDS Chauhan added that the Pakistani mindset dates to 1965 when then Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto told the United Nations Security Council that his country would wage a 'thousand-year war' against India. 'Recent remarks made by General Asim Munir were reminiscent of those previously propagated against India by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto,' Chauhan added.