(Al Jazeera Media Network) India shot down five Pakistani fighter jets and one other military aircraft during fighting in May, India’s air force chief says, the first such statement from the country since the deadly conflict with its neighbour.
Air Chief Marshal Staff Amar Preet Singh made the announcement on Saturday, weeks after India’s military acknowledged that an unspecified number of its own jets were shot down by Pakistan during their heaviest fighting in decades. It involved fighter planes and cruise missiles and killed dozens of people.
“We have at least five fighters confirmed killed and one large aircraft,” Singh said at a military lecture in the southern city of Bengaluru, adding that the large aircraft, which could have been a surveillance plane, was shot down at a distance of 300 km.
He added that India’s S-400 air defence systems took down most of the Pakistani aircraft.
“This is actually the largest ever recorded surface-to-air kill that we can talk about. Our air defence systems have done a wonderful job,” he was quoted as saying by several Indian media outlets.
Pakistan rejected the statement, accusing India of dishonesty and saying it had not hit or destroyed a single Pakistani aircraft.
“If the truth is in question, let both sides open their aircraft inventories to independent verification – though we suspect this would lay bare the reality India seeks to obscure,” Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif said in a social media post.
“Such comical narratives, crafted for domestic political expediency, increase the grave risks of strategic miscalculation in a nuclearized environment.”
Singh, the Indian air force chief, did not mention the type of fighter jets that were downed but said air strikes hit an additional surveillance plane and “a few F-16” fighters that were parked in hangars at two airbases in southeastern Pakistan.
Half of the F-16 hangar at the Shahbaz Jacobabad airbase in Sindh province was destroyed, he said.
Pakistan, whose air force primarily operates Chinese-made jets and US F-16s, has previously denied that India downed any Pakistani aircraft during the May 7-10 fighting between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
The conflict between the two countries was triggered after armed men killed 26 tourists in India-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam town on April 22.
During their fighting, Pakistan said it downed six Indian military jets, including at least three Rafale fighters – a claim one Indian military official described as “absolutely incorrect”.
Both India and Pakistan claim Kashmir in full but administer only parts of the Muslim-majority Himalayan territory, which has been a continuing source of tension between them.
Armed groups in the India-administered portion of Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi’s rule since 1989.
India accuses Pakistan of backing some armed groups, but the latter says it provides only diplomatic support to the Kashmiris’ struggle for self-determination.
Since India and Pakistan declared a ceasefire in May, intermittent fighting has continued in the area between Indian troops and fighters.
On Saturday, Indian officials said two Indian soldiers and a suspected fighter were reported killed late on Friday in the India-administered Kashmir district of Kulgam.
According to Indian military officials, two soldiers were also injured.
