All IAF pilots back home safe in Operation Sindoor, says DG Operations

A lot of fears were allayed on Sunday when the Director General of Air Operations Air Marshal AK Bharti said that all Indian Air Force (IAF) pilots have been accounted for after Wednesday’s strike against Pakistan just after the launch of Operation Sindoor.

 

“All our pilots are back home,” Bharti said while replying to a question. He, however, skirted a pointed query as to whether the IAF lost any of its French and Russian origin fighter aircraft and combat drones during the strike amid swirling rumours of aircraft being felled.

 

The briefing was organized by the Indian Army’s Additional Directorate Strategic Communication that fielded the Directorate General Military Operations of the Army and the Navy besides that of the IAF.

 

The DGMOs of India and Pakistan will communicate on the hotline at 12 pm on Monday to discuss modalities of the ‘stoppage of firing’ agreement that took effect from Saturday although the Pakistan military had violated the terms of agreement just a few hours later when drones intruded into Indian airspace in many locations including Srinagar and Jammu.

 

In total, five Indian military personnel have lost their lives during Operation Sindoor that is still underway.

 

Declining to answer on operational details, DGMO Lt General Rajiv Ghai said: “We are still in a combat scenario.”

 

Operation Sindoor was launched on the intervening night of May 7-8 when India struck at nine terror hubs in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir and in Pakistan that hosted terrorists and their infrastructure. The farthest target was in Bahawalpur in Pakistan’s Punjab, 100 km deep from the Line of Control, the de facto border between the two South Asian neighbours.

 

This operation was in retaliation against the April 22 gunning down of 26 male persons, mostly tourists, in the Baisaran valley in Kashmir’s Pahalgam. 

India