Why India Struck Terror Bases At 1 AM? CDS General Anil Chauhan Shares New Details On Operation Sindoor

Chief of Defence Staff, General Anil Chauhan, revealed that India deliberately chose to carry out 'Operation Sindoor' at 1 AM on May 7. Operation Sindoor was launched in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack, which claimed the lives of 26 people, mostly tourists. Nine terror bases in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) were destroyed by the Indian Armed Forces in the precise strikes. CDS General Chauhan said that the Indian Armed Forces carried out the first strikes around 1 am in the night due to two reasons. "Earlier, we did the Balakot operation, but we didn't have satellite images or photos... But what we did at 1 am now (Operation Sindoor), despite difficulty in collecting evidence in the darkness of night, was due to twin

reasons -- first, we had confidence in our capabilities that we could take imagery, and the second, we wanted to avoid civilian casualties," CDS General Anil Chauhan said while interacting with school children at Raj Bhavan in Jharkhand's Ranchi. He revealed that dawn timings would have been easier for the armed forces. "The best (option) would have been the time of 5.30 am or 6 am... But that time of the first Azan or Namaz... many civilian lives would have been lost. We wanted to avoid that completely," Gen Chauhan said.

Why India Chose May 7 For Strikes

India's decision to choose the intervening night of May 6 and 7 for strikes was deliberate, revealed CDS Chauhan. He said that India was monitoring the neighbouring nation's flying activities for some time and chose the strike on the night of May 7, as the weather was clear with no rain prediction.

Was Indian Navy Involved In Operation Sindoor?

CDS Chauhan said that the common notion about Operation Sindoor was that the armed forces was engaged at seven targets and the air force at two. The Indian Navy "was also involved in the strikes with S400 and S120, and deployment of navy commandos in Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab in addition to the Arabian Sea," General Chauhan said. "During Uri and Balakot, we chose land and air medium, but in this operation, a surprise element was there as we adopted a new strategy, which was needed for success, and used drones, the capability of which we acquired," Gen Chauhan said."India was able to strike deep into enemy territory with long-range precision weapons, guided by satellite imagery, electronic surveillance, and signal intelligence, often without direct visual contact with the adversary. These were non-contact, multi-domain operations where success was not measured by the ground captured, but by the level of dominance and sophistication displayed across all levels of escalation," he emphasised.