New Delhi: National Security Adviser (NSA) Ajit Doval lauded the armed forces for the success of Operation Sindoor, highlighting the precision of the strikes and the performance of India’s homegrown military systems.
He also pushed back against foreign media narratives that suggested Pakistan had inflicted damage on India, challenging them to produce even a single image of such damage.
Addressing the 62nd convocation ceremony of IIT Madras on Friday, Doval said the country took pride in the capability of its indigenous platforms, from battlefield surveillance and radar systems to command-and-control networks and BrahMos missiles.
“We are really proud of it, not necessarily what people perceive but how much of an indigenous content there was,” he said. “We are proud of it, that some of the best systems that worked, whether it was our BrahMos missiles, whether it was our Integrated Air Control and Command Systems (IACCS), whether it was our radars, whether it was the whole thing that was being done at the battlefield surveillance, about the position out there.”
Doval praised how the strikes were “precise to the point” and lasted just 23 minutes.
“We decided to have nine terrorist targets in the crisscross of Pakistan. It was not on the border area or something, which we thought were their defeat. We missed none. We hit nowhere else except that. And it is also not that this was our defeat. It was precise to the point where we knew who is where,” he said.
“Entire operation started at five minutes past one (1.05 am) and was over at twenty-eight minutes past one (1.28 am).”
The operation, carried out in the early hours of 7 May, targeted nine terrorist camps deep inside Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in response to the Pahalgam terror attack that was carried out by Pakistan backed and trained terrorists on 22 April, that killed 26 people, including a foreign national.
He also addressed reports in international media, including the The New York Times, which he believed were misleading and misrepresented the operation.
“Foreign press …said Pakistan did that..You tell me one photograph…There are imageries from satellites all over the world… which shows any Indian damage being done, even a glass pane having been broken,” he said.
“I don’t know, only our forces would know what’s happening in this area. But I’m just telling, they brought out photographs, they wrote this thing, The New York Times, put this thing, put out images.”
Referring to the circulation of satellite imagery online, Doval said that while no visuals of damage in India had emerged, satellite images clearly pointed to damage to key Pakistani air bases.
“All the images, they said, 13 air bases of Pakistan, now and before 10th May and after 10th May. Whether it was in Sargodha, or it was in Rahim Yar Khan, or it was in Chaklala, or it was in Rawalpindi, any of the places, that 13 important air bases, including the Bholari, where they have got the AWACS, the Airborne Early Warning Control System,” he said.
He clarified that these assessments were not sourced from Indian intelligence but from publicly available international satellite data.
“Now, I’m not talking, I’m not telling any of this. I’m only telling what the foreign media, on the basis of the images, have put the images. So, we were able to achieve this. We are capable of doing that (causing damage to the adversary’s airbases).”
It was reliably learnt that the actual loss suffered by Pakistan may be way higher than what they have been showcasing, both officially and unofficially.
