Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan has acknowledged that India lost its fighter jets during the recent conflict with Pakistan. He confirmed this during an interview with Bloomberg TV on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore.

“I think what’s important is not the jet being downed, but why they were downed,” said Chauhan, in response to questions about the aerial losses. While he declined to specify the number of Indian jets lost, he dismissed Pakistan’s claims of shooting down six Indian warplanes as “absolutely incorrect”.

“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 we flew all our jets again, targeting at long range,” he told Bloomberg TV.

On May 28, Wednesday Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif claimed that their air force shot down six Indian jets, including four Rafales, on the first day of fighting. He made this claim while addressing a ceremony of Azerbaijani Independence Day in Lachin city.

In the official media briefings during and after the four day conflict, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri and Air Marshal AK Bharti, Director-General of Air Operations had refrained from denying the reports of fighter jet losses, citing that both the countries were still in a mode of combat.