NEW DELHI: India’s army chief said on Tuesday that the head of Pakistan’s military operations had been told to control what he said were drone intrusions from Pakistan into India, months after the nuclear-armed rivals engaged in their worst fighting in decades.
An Indian military source said there were five drone intrusions on Sunday evening on the frontier in the Jammu region of Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK)).
In another incident on Friday, a drone from Pakistan was suspected to have dropped two pistols, three ammunition magazines, 16 bullets and one grenade that were recovered following a search, the source alleged.
Indian Army chief General Upendra Dwivedi said at least eight drones had been sighted since Saturday. “These drones, I believe, were defensive drones, which want to go up and see if any action was being taken,” Dwivedi told reporters at an annual press conference ahead of Army Day on January 15.
“It’s possible they also wanted to see if there were any gaps, any laxity in the Indian Army, any gaps through which they could send terrorists,” he alleged, adding that the directors of military operations of the two sides spoke by phone on Tuesday.
“This matter was discussed ... today and they have been told that this is unacceptable to us, and please put a stop to it. This has been conveyed to them,” Dwivedi said.
“We are fully alert along the Line of Control,” Dwivedi said, adding several low-flying drones entered Indian-controlled airspace with their lights switched on -- as many as seven on Saturday, and another two or three on Sunday. He boasted that during military tensions with Pakistan last year in May, India carried out strikes on “terrorist targets in Pakistan for 22 minutes, which caused chaos in Pakistan.”
Gen Dwivedi said that Operation Sindoor, initiated against Pakistan during May 2025, is still ongoing. Recalling the actions taken by both countries against each other last year, he claimed that after the Indian strikes, “their (Pakistan’s) decision-making cycle was completely disrupted and it took them time to comprehend.” He claimed that “there was so much chaos on their side that they couldn’t understand what was happening.” However, the Indian army chief also said that “we did not want to escalate the conflict because we had achieved our political and military objective.”
So far, Pakistan has not commented on Gen Dwivedi’s claims. However, the Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs had already denied similar claims from him. Pakistan’s swift and successful response to Indian strikes inflicted massive loss on Indian air force that lost several of its top notch aircraft, including Rafale jets.
