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NEW DELHI: India did not strike Kirana Hills in Pakistan’s Punjab province, a fortified complex with underground nuclear infrastructure and storage facilities, though some strategic messaging was certainly done by hitting the Nur Khan and Sargodha airbases.
IAF fighter jets like Sukhoi-30MKIs, armed with BrahMos missiles and other weapons, did target nine airbases in Pakistan and PoK as well as some radar sites, but Kirana Hills wasn’t among the targets.
On whether IAF hit Kirana Hills nuclear storage facility, director general of air operations Air Marshal A K Bharti first said in a lighter vein, “Thank you for telling us Kirana Hills houses nuclear installations. We did not know it.”
IAF's categorical denial that it had bombed Kirana Hills in Pakistan's Punjab province effectively junks reports of "radioactive leakage" at the site due to a missile hit, which had found some traction in international circles.
"We have not hit Kirana Hills, whatever is there. I did not brief about it in my briefing on Operation Sindoor yesterday," Air Marshal A K Bharti said at the tri-services presser on Monday.
IAF, of course, did hit the Sargodha airbase, which is home to F-16 and JF-17 fighters, and just around 20km from Kirana Hills. The hills are around 75km away from Pakistan's crucial Khushab nuclear complex, which has four heavy water reactors to produce weapons-grade plutonium.Another big hit took place at the Nur Khan-Chaklala airbase at Rawalpindi, located close to the headquarters of Pakistan's Strategic Plans Division, which handles Pak's N-arsenal like the Indian Strategic Forces Command, and is barely 10km from Islamabad. "More than the actual damage, the hits constituted strategic messaging," a senior officer said.
