“One year has gone past and we look back with satisfaction. We have learnt a lot of lessons. A lot of things have been implemented after Balakot operations,” Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa, the former Chief of the Air Staff, said on the first anniversary of the Balakot airstrikes.
“Ghus kar marenge (we will enter your homes and strike), wherever you are,” was the underlying message of the airstrikes, Dhanoa added.
“Basically, it’s a paradigm shift in the way we conduct our operations. The other side never believed that we could carry out a strike inside Pakistan to take out a terror training camp that we successfully carried out,” he added.
Dhanoa didn’t cite any figures of casualty but said that three buildings at the Balakot terror camp were hit , likely killing those inside.
"We knew how many people were approximately in every building and the buildings that were targeted were the ones which were of importance. The highest priority was given to the building where people were undergoing their final stage of training before they are pushed inside Jammu and Kashmir," he said.
Speaking about the aerial dogfight of 27 February, Dhanoa said: "PAF under air defence umbrella of F-16 had carried out attacks with stand-off weapons on our forward military installations. I have always maintained that these were a miss because they are the first-generation weapons and second they were all heavy weapons which were dropped fairly close. Were we expecting a response? Of course, we were. That is why our air defence was in a high state of alert."
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