Former Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan has cleared the air on speculations about India targeting Pakistan's Kirana Hills nuclear facility. He clarified that India did not actually target the facility, but an Indian loitering munition searching for radars may have hit it after failing to find a target.
Kirana Hills is situated 10 kilometres north of Sargodha. India had sent loitering munitions towards Sargodha to trace Pakistani radars, said Chauhan. These munitions could remain airborne for around two hours but they would come down if they fail to find a target.
"It must have come and hit one of those hills. So that could be one of the reasons... because Pakistani media also showed some kind of images in which there was smoke coming out from Kirana Hills," he said.
Sargodha was one of the Pakistani military targets that India cleared for further strikes even after the Pakistani DGMO reached out for talks.
"Once the Pakistanis had picked up the phone and said they wanted to talk at about 10 AM, the Air Chief asked me whether he should strike Sargodha. I said, 'Go ahead'," Chauhan said.
The former CDS also revealed that one of the principles governing India's escalation matrix was not to allow Pakistan to deliver the final strike.
"One of the couple of principles which we thought in the escalation matrix which we laid for ourselves was that the last strike or the winning note will always be delivered by us and not by the Pakistanis," he said.
Chauhan also clarified that since Pakistan could not hit any Indian targets, they could not get any evidence about their strikes. "They were actually after 10th also till about 12th they were trying their best to obtain images so that they have some evidence," he said.
