Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan (image: x.com/HQ_IDS_India)

Pune, Maharashtra: Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Anil Chauhan on Tuesday said that Operation Bunyan-um-Marsoos, launched on May 10 as a response to India’s Operation Sindoor, and which was meant to bring India to its knees in 48 hours, “folded up in 8 hours”. After that, Pakistan “picked up the phone and said they wanted to talk,” General Chauhan added.

The CDS made these remarks while delivering a special lecture on ‘Future Wars and Warfare’ organised by the Savitribai Phule Pune University. In the speech, he also stated that the losses on the Indian side during the operation are not important as the targeted final result of the operation.

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General Chauhan said that although India had hit only terror targets, Pakistan’s side accelerated the conflict into the military domain. He pointed out that Pakistan’s decision to talk must have stemmed from two facts: “One is that they must have assumed that if they continued this mode, they are likely to lose much more. Hence, they picked up the telephone. And second, since they had struck us at multiple fronts, they still did not have the benefit of understanding what they had struck. So, they must have thought they must have struck and, hence, they would like to talk now. And if they don’t, they will tend to lose more.”

The CDS then stated that the government’s reason behind Operation Sindoor was not “retribution” but rather about “drawing these limits of tolerance” with Pakistan. He added that, through the operation, India aimed to convey that the country would not live under the shadow of terror and nuclear blackmail. He further stressed the Operation Sindoor was not over and that there was only temporary suspension of operations.

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Earlier, General Chauhan was caught in controversy while speaking to the foreign media in Singapore, where he acknowledged that tactical mistakes had been made initially and India lost fighter jets.