India Folded Up Pak Plan in Just 8 Hours, Says CDS

New Delhi: The Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Gen. Anil Chauhan on Tuesday asserted that Operation Sindoor showed that India is not going to live under the shadow of terror and nuclear blackmail. The CDS said professional military forces are not affected by setbacks, as overall outcomes are more important than losses during conflicts.

Calling the terror attack on tourists in Pahalgam a "profound cruelty", Gen. Chauhan said that "our adversary's (Pakistan) approach is to bleed India by a thousand cuts" but India drew a new red line against cross-border terrorism by conducting the Operation Sindoor.

"On May 10, at about 1 am, their (Pakistan) aim was to get India to its knees in 48 hours. Multiple attacks were launched… They have escalated this conflict…we had actually hit only terror targets... Operations which they thought will continue for 48 hours folded up in about 8 hours. They picked up the telephone and said they wanted to talk," said CDS.

He said Pakistan Army Chief Gen. Asim Munir spewed venom against India and Hindus just weeks before what happened in Pahalgam.

Responding to queries over his acknowledgement that India lost an unspecified number of combat jets during the initial phase of the operation, the CDS said, "When I was asked about losses on our side, I said these are not important, as results and how you act are important."

The CDS said that it would not be correct to talk about losses and numbers. “... I think professional forces are not affected by setbacks or losses. In a war, what is important is that the morale needs to remain high even if there are setbacks. Adaptability is an important constituent of a very professional force. You should be able to understand what went wrong, need to rectify your mistake and go again. You cannot sit down in fear,” he said.

Gen. Chauhan used a cricketing analogy to describe India's decisive win over Pakistan, asserting that India had inflicted an "innings defeat" on Pakistan. "Suppose you go into a cricket Test match and you win by an 'innings defeat', then there is no question of how many wickets and how many balls and how many players. It's an innings (defeat that has been inflicted)."

"Operation Sindoor, as far as the government is concerned, it is not about retribution… I think it was about drawing the limits of tolerance. The state-sponsored terrorism from Pakistan has to stop… Pakistan should not be able to hold India hostage to terror activities. India is not going to live under the shadow of terror and nuclear blackmail," said Gen. Chauhan, adding that the government wanted a short war, as India doesn't want to be hyphenated with Pakistan. India is on a different growth trajectory and the aspirations of its people are also different.

"Operation Sindoor created history as far as air warfare is concerned. Successful operations were carried out against an adversary which was almost equally matched. It was not against an adversary which had no air force or air defence... If you are able to carry out relentless operations deep inside with precision and offensive intent. It was a big achievement and we were able to penetrate those air defence networks..." the CDS said.

"As far as the Pakistani side is concerned, I can make two guesses. One, that they were losing things faster at a very long distance and they thought that if this continued for some more time, they were likely to lose more and hence, they picked up the telephone," he said.

Another factor which would have contributed to Pakistan coming to the table, the CDS said, was that Pakistan wrongly assumed that the large number of attacks they had carried out against India were successful. He said it would have been only 1-2 days after the ceasefire that Pakistan would have realised that their attacks against India failed.

"From our side, we didn't want to get into a long-drawn conflict. We've seen our experience in Operation Prakaram. We were there for almost nine months. It involves a lot of expenditure and disrupts everything. We had seen this to some extent after Balakot; there was a deployment which we had mobilised. In this particular case, what happened was that before this mobilisation could be completed, the operations were halted, " he added.