‘Fanciful stories’: IAF chief dismisses Pakistan’s claim of downing 6 Indian fighter jets

In his first press conference since Operation Sindoor, Indian Air Force chief Amar Preet Singh dismissed Pakistan’s claim of downing six Indian fighter planes as “fanciful stories”. Instead, he said that India downed at least four to five Pakistani fighters that “most likely” included US-made F-16.

Speaking about Pakistan’s claims, Singh said, “If they think that they have took down my 15 aircraft, let them think. I won’t speak anything. Have you seen any picture which can establish their narrative?”

Switching to Hindi, Singh added, “These are their fanciful stories (manohar kahaniyan). Let them tell these stories to their public to save their face.”

After the Pahalgam attack on April 22 in which terrorists killed 26 people, India on the night of May 6 launched Operation Sindoor and struck nine terrorist sites in Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (POJK). As Pakistan responded with attacks on Indian military and civilian sites, India responded and two sides fought for next four days. As India struck a host of Pakistani military sites, such as airbases, radar sites, and air defence systems, Pakistan requested a ceasefire on May 10 that India granted.

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In the four-day conflict, Pakistan claimed to have shot down as many as six Indian fighters. While India has acknowledged the loss of fighters, India has maintained that the number claimed by Pakistan —six— is far-fetched. India has not given the number of aircraft lost but has said multiple aircraft were lost.

India didn’t let Pakistan act, forced it to seek peace

In his speech, Singh said that India’s strikes never gave Pakistan any room to act proactively and forced it to request a ceasefire and seek an end to hostilities. He said that India began its strikes with very clear objectives and opted for a ceasefire once those objectives were achieved.

Singh said, “This was one war that was started with a very clear objective, and it was dominated in a quick time without prolonging it”

Singh further said that “we could make them reach a stage where they asked for a ceasefire, ask for termination of hostilities, and we took a call as a nation to terminate those hostilities because our own objectives are met”. He said that the way India concluded the operation is something that the world needs to learn from us" — the remark came at a time when world leaders are struggling to end their wars in Ukraine and Gaza.

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Pakistan was “almost not allowed any freedom to do anything” and Indian long-range SAMs [surface to air missiles] that we had procured recently and operationalised turned the table, said Singh.

It will go down in the history that longest kill that India achieved of more than 300 kilometers by that and it seriously curtailed Pakistan’s activities, said Singh.

The coordination and cohesion among all the armed forces and their wings became the game-changer, said Singh.

The assets of all the three services —the Army, Navy, and Air Force— were merged together, such as the air defense assets, the counter UAV [unmanned aerial vehicles] assets, and everything worked under one combined control of the IAF command and control centre, and that worked out to be a game-changer, said Singh.