Did Army general admit India's defeat to Pakistan? Centre's one-word clarification

The Press Information Bureau (PIB) has dismissed as fake a claim being pushed by several Pakistani propaganda accounts, which alleged that India's Deputy Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Rahul R Singh, confessed to a 'defeat' at the hands of Pakistan's electronic warfare and Chinese C4 intelligence systems in the recent conflict between New Delhi and Islamabad.

The false claim was circulated with a photograph of Lt Gen Singh, alongside quotes attributed to him such as: "Pakistan's electronic warfare and C4 intelligence capability truly surprised us, and Chinese technology played a big role in defeating India".

Other posts labelled 'breaking' repeated similar lines, claiming an Indian general had admitted that Chinese technology was instrumental in Pakistan's so-called victory.

One account even declared: "Top Indian military general says Pakistan's electronic warfare and C4 intelligence capability truly surprised us". Many of these posts linked the alleged remarks to Operation Sindoor, amplifying the narrative across multiple social media platforms.

Countering these viral posts, PIB issued a fact-check clarifying that Lt Gen Singh never made any such statement and termed the quotes "completely baseless". The bureau stated: "Pakistani propaganda accounts are claiming that Deputy Chief of Army Staff, Lt Gen Rahul R Singh has said 'Pakistan's electronic warfare and C4 intelligence capability truly surprised us, and Chinese technology played a big role in defeating India'. These claims are Fake! No such statement has been made by the Deputy Chief of Army Staff".

Addressing the 'New Age Military Technologies' conference organised by FICCI last week, Lt Gen Rahul Singh highlighted the scale of Chinese influence on Pakistan's defence preparedness, pointing out that as much as 81 per cent of Islamabad's military hardware comes from China.

"If you are to look at statistics, in the last five years, 81% of the military hardware that Pakistan is getting is all Chinese...China is able to test its weapons against other weapons, so it's like a live lab available to them," the top Army general had said.

"When DGMO-level talks were going on, Pakistan was actually mentioning that we know your important vector is primed, and it is ready for action. I would request you to pull it back. So, they were getting live inputs... from China," he added.

India launched Operation Sindoor on May 7 as a counterstrike to the April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam, where Pakistan-backed terrorists killed 26 people. The attack primarily targeted tourists, and a local resident who tried to protect them was also shot dead.

For four days following the operation, intense clashes erupted between the nuclear-armed neighbours, with Pakistan unleashing waves of drone attacks across multiple Indian border states, including Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Rajasthan. A ceasefire was declared on May 10, and it later emerged that Islamabad had sought de-escalation within 48 hours of May 7.

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