India lost “some” combat jets on May 7, the opening day of Operation Sindoor, because of the “constraint given by the political leadership” against striking Pakistani military establishments and air defences, India’s defence attaché in Indonesia told a seminar in Jakarta.

Captain Shiv Kumar’s comments have sparked fresh controversy with the Congress accusing the government of having “misled” the country and “compromised national security”.

Kumar made the comments at a seminar at a Jakarta university on June 10. His remarks, however, went unnoticed until a video surfaced on Sunday.

Kumar, a navy officer, said: “I do agree that we did lose some aircraft and that happened only because of the constraint given by the political leadership to not attack the military establishments and their air defences.”

A navy captain is equivalent to a colonel in the army

“But after the loss, we changed our tactics and went for their military installations.” Kumar said.

“We first achieved (the) suppression of enemy air defences and destruction of enemy air defences and that’s why all our attacks could easily go through using
surface-to-air missiles and surface-to-surface missiles.”

Sources in the defence ministry declined to comment on Kumar’s remarks.

The official X account of the Indian embassy in Indonesia said on Sunday night that Kumar’s remarks “have been quoted out of context and the media reports are a mis-representation of the intention and thrust of the presentation made by the speaker”.

“The presentation conveyed that the Indian Armed Forces serve under civilian political leadership unlike some other countries in our neighbourhood,” the embassy’s post said.

The post said: "It was also explained that the objective of Operation Sindoor was to target terrorist infrastructure and the Indian response was non-escalatory."

The Narendra Modi government has so far not said anything on the loss of aircraft during the military conflict although the country’s top military general, Anil Chauhan, had earlier this month admitted that India lost combat jets because of a "tactical mistake" during Operation Sindoor.

Chauhan, the Chief of Defence Staff, had in interviews with Bloomberg TV and Reuters in Singapore said India had lost fighter jets on the opening day of Operation Sindoor but swiftly rectified its tactical mistakes and launched further attacks to "hit deep inside Pakistan" on the subsequent days.

He had dismissed Pakistan’s claim that it had shot down six Indian fighter jets as “absolutely incorrect”, but did not say how many planes India lost.

Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera on Sunday issued a scathing statement, accusing the Modi government of deliberately concealing the truth.

“The Modi government has misled the nation from the start — failing to disclose the aircraft losses during Operation Sindoor,” Khera said on X.

“There were oblique references to losses in air combat on 6/7 May, during a briefing by the DG Air Ops (Air Marshal Awadhesh Kumar Bharti) when he said — ‘We are in a combat situation and losses are a part of combat,’” Khera wrote.

“Then, it was left to the Chief of Defence Staff, General Anil Chauhan, to make the first official admission of our attrition in the air while speaking to Bloomberg TV on the sidelines of the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore,” he added.

“And now, in another shocking revelation by Capt. Shiv Kumar, it has emerged that the Indian Air Force lost fighter jets to Pakistan on the night of May 7 during its targeting of Pakistan’s terror-linked sites ‘only because of the constraint given by the political leadership’,” Khera said.

“This is a direct indictment of the Modi government, particularly defence minister Rajnath Singh. No wonder they are ducking our demand for a special session of Parliament like the plague. They know they’ve compromised national security, and they’re terrified of what the Congress party will expose before the people of India.”