Top Indian defence official admits India lost jets in Pakistan conflict

• India's govt previously declined to comment on fate of lost aircraft.
• "We're able to understand tactical mistake we made," says Chauhan.
• Chauhan's remarks came during interview at Shangri-La Dialogue. 
  

India's military has admitted, for the first time, that it lost an unspecified number of fighter jets in its clashes with Pakistan earlier this month. 

Anil Chauhan, chief of the defence staff of the Indian Armed Forces, confirmed this during an interview with Bloomberg TV at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday.

Chauhan said: "What is important is not the jets being down, but why they were being downed." He added: "The good part is that we are able to understand the tactical mistake which we made, remedy it, rectify it, and then implement it again after two days and fly all our jets again, targeting at long range." 

Chauhan's remarks represent the first direct confirmation from an Indian official regarding the fate of its fighter jets during the conflict with Pakistan, which erupted on May 7.

Earlier this month, in response to India's unprovoked attacks on innocent civilians in Pakistan, the Pakistan Air Force downed six Indian jets, including three French-made Rafale fighter jets.

India's government had previously declined to comment on whether it lost aircraft in the fighting.

A day earlier, senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy also acknowledged that Pakistan shot down five IAF jets during the recent conflict.

Speaking in an interview, Swamy said that the Indian planes were defeated in air combat as Pakistan deployed Chinese fighter jets, which outperformed the French-made aircraft used by New Delhi.

"Pakistan downed five of our planes. They used Chinese planes to down our planes, which were French," Swamy revealed. "The Chinese planes were good, but the French were not. Rafale is not up to the mark as per India's needs," he added, criticising the performance of the highly-touted Rafale jets.

He went on to make a startling claim regarding the controversial Rafale deal, alleging corruption in the procurement process. "Corruption happened in Rafale which won’t be investigated till Modi is the PM," he stated firmly.

Furthermore, Chauhan also confirmed that the four-day conflict, the worst between the nuclear-armed neighbours in half a century, never escalated to the point of nuclear war. The clashes involved both sides trading air, drone, and missile strikes, as well as artillery and small arms fire along their shared border.

The conflict was triggered by New Delhi after an attack in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam on April 22, where gunmen killed 26 civilians. India labelled it an act of terrorism orchestrated by Pakistan, a claim denied by leaders in Islamabad.