By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The military has launched a scathing attack on a recently released Indian documentary chronicling last year’s four-day conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, dismissing it as a “propaganda video” that recasts what it called a “military blunder” as a triumph.
The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of Pakistan’s armed forces, issued a lengthy statement on Monday tearing into the documentary’s account of Operation Sindoor, the codename India gave to its strikes on Pakistani territory on 7 May 2025. The strikes came weeks after gunmen killed tourists in Pahalgam, in Indian-occupied Kashmir, on 22 April, and triggered the most serious military confrontation between the two countries in decades.
“More than a year after Marka-e-Haq, India refuses to face the harsh reality,” the ISPR statement read, using Pakistan’s own name for the conflict, which translates as “Battle of Truth”. “Instead of conceding defeat in a failed venture, India has decided to colour history in her preferred hues.”
The documentary, which features senior Indian political and military figures, has drawn a furious response from Islamabad, with ISPR describing it as a “highly dramatised, coloured and factually inaccurate account” that relies on “selectively edited interviews, emotional narration and cinematic Bollywood-style reconstruction” to rewrite the operation’s outcome.
“For its lack of nuance and seriousness, the documentary can be characterised as a tragedy and a comedy at the same time,” the statement said, adding that it contained “fundamental contradictions” which exposed “a belated attempt to manufacture a domestically palatable version of events”.
Timeline dispute over Pahalgam attackers
Central to Pakistan’s criticism is a glaring inconsistency in the documentary’s chronology. ISPR said the film attempts to draw a direct line between a speech given by Pakistan’s army chief on 16 April 2025 and the Pahalgam attack six days later, an assertion it dismissed as “conjuring a conspiracy theory out of nothing”.
More pointedly, ISPR highlighted a contradiction at the heart of India’s official narrative. New Delhi has said the three men it identified as responsible for the Pahalgam killings were tracked down and killed on 28 July 2025 — some 82 days after Operation Sindoor was launched. Yet, according to ISPR, the documentary frames the operation itself as retribution for the attack.
“If the alleged perpetrators were eliminated on 28 July, India must explain who it claims to have punished on 7 May 2025,” the statement said.
Disputed claim of “100 percent mission success”
ISPR also took aim at India’s assertion that the operation achieved complete success, calling the claim “equally detached from the operational record”. Pakistan’s military maintains that its forces downed eight Indian military aircraft during the conflict while repelling Indian aggression.
Pakistan says it followed up with Operation Bunyan-un-Marsoos, striking 26 targets using Fatah precision-guided rockets and missiles, Pakistan Air Force precision munitions, long-range loitering munitions and precision artillery. Among the targets, ISPR said, were facilities allegedly used against Pakistani citizens and sites linked to terrorism against the country.
The statement argued that the documentary undercuts its own narrative of Indian battlefield dominance, pointing to admissions from Indian military figures within the film itself acknowledging sustained Pakistani missile, drone and air activity, continued clashes along the Line of Control, and the activation of India’s air-defence systems.
“Such admissions are difficult to reconcile with its repeated portrayal of Pakistan being decisively defeated,” ISPR said.
Ceasefire account “contradicts” claim of victory
Pakistan’s military also seized on the documentary’s own description of how the fighting ended, arguing it undermines India’s narrative of an outright win. According to ISPR, the film’s narration confirms that hostilities were halted through direct communication between the two countries’ Directors General of Military Operations, resulting in an agreed cessation of military action — a process in which Washington played a facilitating role.
“This alone contradicts the attempt to portray Op Sindoor as a unilateral Indian military triumph,” the statement said. “A cessation of hostilities, facilitated by the US, cannot subsequently be repurposed as evidence of unconditional victory.”
ISPR further accused the documentary of internal inconsistency on how the conflict escalated, noting it repeatedly stresses themes of surprise, precision, deep strikes and what it called “escalation dominance”, while elsewhere claiming India deliberately restrained the conflict and offered Pakistan an “exit window”.
“These competing claims expose the production as a carefully constructed domestic narrative rather than an objective military account,” the statement said. “India has not declassified the truth. It has cobbled together a propaganda video to project a military blunder as a successful endeavour.”
Pakistan warns of “disproportionate response” to future action
ISPR insisted that “no amount of cinematic reconstruction” could alter the chronology of events, “erase aircraft losses, conceal military casualties” or transform what it called a battlefield defeat into a “self-proclaimed victory”. It added that Pakistan had “no need to manufacture a narrative” around the conflict, asserting that the operational record, battlefield evidence and diplomatic exchanges — as well as India’s own later statements — spoke for themselves and were “widely acknowledged by the international community”.
The statement closed with Pakistan reaffirming its “commitment to regional peace and stability”, while cautioning that its armed forces remained “fully prepared and capable of defending the country’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and national interests”.
“Any future military misadventure will be met with a firm, decisive and disproportionate response,” ISPR warned, “after which no amount of cinematic perjury will be able to provide any face-saving to India.”
Copyright © 2021 Independent Pakistan | All rights reserved
