Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi spoke publicly for the first time about the planning and execution of Operation Sindoor. He shared these insights earlier this week while opening Agnishodh, the Indian Army’s research center at IIT Madras.

Operation in the ‘Grey Zone’

General Dwivedi compared Operation Sindoor to a game of chess. He explained that it took place in a “grey zone,” meaning it was unpredictable and just below the level of a full-scale conventional war.

“In Op Sindoor, what we did, we played chess… What does it mean! It means that we did not know what step the enemy was going to take and what we were going to do. It was a gray zone. The gray zone is that we are not going for the conventional operations but we are doing something which is just short of the conventional operations,” he said.

Planning Started in Late April

The operation’s planning began on April 23. This was when the three service chiefs and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh agreed that decisive action was necessary.

“This is the time when Defence Minister Rajnath Singh had also said, I think enough is enough. And all the three chiefs were very clear, something had to be done. And the free hand was given, of course, that you decide what is to be done,” General Dwivedi said.

By April 25, the Northern Command had struck seven out of nine high-value targets, killing several terrorists.

How Sindoor Was Different from Uri and Balakot

General Dwivedi emphasized that Operation Sindoor was unlike earlier missions like Uri and Balakot. The Uri attack targeted launch pads to send a message. The 2019 Balakot strikes hit training camps deep inside Pakistan.

Sindoor, however, went “wide and deep.” It reached further into enemy territory, targeting what General Dwivedi called the “heartland.” The key targets were code-named “Nursery” and “Masters.”

“This was the first time we hit the heartland. And our targets were Nursery and the Masters. And that’s what came as a shocker to them,” he said.

Out of nine targets, five were in Jammu and Kashmir and four in Punjab. Two missions were carried out together with the Indian Air Force.

General Dwivedi added, “This test match stopped on the fourth day and it could have continued for fourteen days also, one forty days also, fourteen hundred days also, we don’t know. So we have to be prepared for those kinds of things.”

Air Force Confirms Major Aerial Success

In another statement, Air Chief Marshal Amar Preet Singh revealed that during Operation Sindoor, India’s air defence shot down five Pakistani fighter jets and one AEW&C/ELINT surveillance aircraft. This is the largest number of surface-to-air kills India has ever recorded.

Speaking at the 16th Air Chief Marshal LM Katre Memorial Lecture, Singh gave details about the strikes on May 7, which targeted terrorist infrastructure near the border and inside Pakistan.