New Delhi, August 25: Former Chief of Defence Staff General Anil Chauhan on Tuesday said India did not target Pakistan’s Kirana Hills nuclear facility during last year’s Operation Sindoor, but an Indian loitering munition inadvertently hit it.
Speaking at an event organised by the Vivekananda International Foundation, he said India had sent several loitering munitions towards Sargodha, located 10 km south of Kirana Hills, to target radars in and around the area.
He explained that the munitions had a loitering time of about two hours and, if they failed to find a target within that period, they would strike somewhere. According to Chauhan, one of the munitions may have subsequently hit one of the hills at Kirana Hills.
“…It’s been asked whether Kirana Hills were hit or not, which is where their (Pakistan’s) nuclear facilities are… Before those strikes, we had sent in a lot of loitering missions at Sargodha and Kirana Hills is about 10 kilometers north of Sargodha. So the loitering mission is looking for radars which are in and around Sargodha, and it has a lifetime, which means it will loiter for about 2 hours and once it does not find a target, it comes down and hits somewhere. It must have come and hit one of those hills…,” he said.
India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7, 2025, in response to the April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam region that killed 26 people. The tri-services operation targeted terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
