# Ex-CDS says Indian munition likely hit Pakistan’s Kirana Hills unintentionally 2026-08-25T23:51:07+00:00 | Governance | Indian Opinion Desk Corroboration: 2 independent outlets Former Chief of Defence Staff Gen Anil Chauhan said on Tuesday that a loitering munition deployed by India during Operation Sindoor likely struck Pakistan’s Kirana Hills unintentionally. Speaking at a Vivekananda International Foundation event, he explained that Indian forces had sent multiple loitering munitions to search for radars around Sargodha. These munitions have a loitering duration of about two hours, and if they fail to find a target in that time, they descend and strike a location. Chauhan said one such munition “must have come and hit one of those hills,” which are associated with Pakistan’s nuclear facilities. He backed former Air Marshal AK Bharti, who last year denied that India had targeted Kirana Hills. The remarks follow Operation Sindoor, the tri-services operation launched on May 7 last year in response to the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 people were killed. India struck nine terror infrastructure sites in Pakistan and PoK, killing over 100 terrorists, the government said. Chauhan also recounted that the Air Chief had sought his approval to strike Sargodha after Pakistan requested talks, and that poor weather later forced a change of target from Skardu to Bholari. He described the operation as “still ongoing,” though major active phases have concluded. ## Indian Opinion Analysis Both outlets report the same facts from Chauhan’s talk, offering no editorial slant. The Economic Times leads with the admission that Kirana Hills may have been hit unintentionally, then details the loitering-munition explanation and the operational sequence including the Sargodha-to-Bholari switch. Rediff foregrounds Chauhan’s clarification that Indian forces “did not target” the hills, repeating his backing of Air Marshal Bharti’s earlier denial. The difference is a matter of emphasis: the first leads with the unintended strike claim, the second leads with the denial of intent. Neither source omits the other’s core fact, so a balanced reading is the combined story: India did not deliberately target Kirana Hills, but the government’s own former CDS now says a stray munition likely hit it. The next concrete step is any official Pakistani or Indian statement in response to Chauhan’s account. ## Coverage Coverage: 2 sources, 2 neutral - economictimes.indiatimes.com (neutral report) Leads with the unintentional-hit claim and details operational planning, no editorial judgement. - rediff.com (neutral report) Leads with the denial of intent and Chauhan backing Bharti, no editorial judgement. This brief was synthesised by AI from the 2 sources linked above, so one read covers every framing they carry. Updated: this story now draws on 2 sources. Last updated 2026-08-26T00:46:57+00:00. Tags: Anil Chauhan, Kirana Hills, Operation Sindoor, Sargodha Canonical: https://indianopinion.org/former-cds-says-kirana-hills-strike-was-unintentional-loitering-munition-hit/ License: Summary and commentary (c) Indian Opinion, reusable with attribution. Facts belong to the linked sources. Cite: https://indianopinion.org/former-cds-says-kirana-hills-strike-was-unintentional-loitering-munition-hit/#story-in-brief How this brief was made: an AI model read the reports linked above and wrote this summary and analysis, which were published automatically. Published briefs are sampled every hour by an automated quality check; the editor verifies its findings and approves corrections, and corrected briefs carry a dated correction line. Stance labels are editorial classifications of how each outlet framed this story, assigned by the same model, not ratings of the outlets. We do no original reporting. Methodology: https://indianopinion.org/ai-use-policy/