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Why India claiming it shot down six Pakistan’s jets three months after Pak-India war

August 10, 2025

By Irum Saleem

Three months after Pakistan and India war, the Indian Air Force chief makes a strange claim that his  country had shot down five Pakistani fighter jets and one other military aircraft during clashes in May.

The comments are the first such statement by the Indian side three months after its worst military conflict in decades with its neighbour.

During the conflict, Pakistan said it downed five Indian planes in air-to-air combat on May 7, later stating that figure as six. India’s highest-ranking general has also acknowledged that its forces suffered losses in the air, but denied losing six aircraft.

“Speaking at an event in the southern city of Bengaluru, Indian Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh claimed: “We have at least five fighters confirmed killed, and one large aircraft,” adding that the large aircraft, which could be a surveillance plane, was shot down at a distance of 300 kilometres,” Rueters reported.

He alleged that most of the Pakistani aircraft were downed by India’s Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missile system. He cited electronic tracking data as confirmation of the strikes.

Singh did not mention the type of fighter jets that were downed, but claimed that airstrikes also hit an additional surveillance plane and “a few F16” fighters that were parked in hangars at two air bases in Sindh and Punjab. “This is actually the largest ever recorded surface-to-air kill,” he insisted.

Responding to the claims in a post on X, Pakistan defence minister Khawaja Asif said: “The belated assertions made by the Indian Air Force chief regarding alleged destruction of Pakistani aircraft during Operation Sindoor are as implausible as they are ill-timed.

“It is also ironic how senior Indian military officers are being used as the faces of monumental failure caused by strategic shortsightedness of Indian politicians. For three months, no such claims were voiced — while Pakistan, in the immediate aftermath, presented detailed technical briefings to the international media, and independent observers recorded widespread acknowledgment of the loss of multiple Indian aircraft, including Rafales, by sources ranging from world leaders, senior Indian politicians to foreign intelligence assessments.”

Asif said that “not a single Pakistani aircraft was hit or destroyed” by India, adding that Pakistan took out six Indian jets, S400 air defence batteries and unmanned aircraft of India while “swiftly putting several Indian airbases out of action

He added that the losses on the Line of Control for Indian armed forces were “disproportionately heavier” as well.

“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. Wars are not won by falsehoods but by moral authority, national resolve and professional competence.

“Such comical narratives, crafted for domestic political expediency, increase the grave risks of strategic miscalculation in a nuclearised environment,” he warned.

The defence minister iterated that every violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would invite “swift, surefire and proportionate response, and responsibility for any ensuing escalation will rest entirely with strategically blind leaders who gamble with South Asia’s peace for fleeting political gains”.

Former envoy Dr Maleeha Lodhi said the Indian air chief’s claim was “laughable”, noting that it took him “several months to count the planes to make this ridiculous assertion, the Rueters said.

Meanwhile, Indian Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said when questioned about the matter: “The question we have after today’s information … when we had such a strong army and we were advancing then under whose pressure did you stop Operation Sindoor?”

    Both countries stick together claims and they need independent verification to their tall claims. PAK DESTINY

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