Pakistan’s military establishment has reacted sharply to the release of Discovery Channel India’s two-part documentary Declassified: Operation Sindoor, which premiered on 15 August, FirstPost reported.

The production revisits the four-day India–Pakistan conflict of May 2025, triggered by the Pahalgam terror attack of 22 April 2025, and has unsettled Rawalpindi’s narrative of events.

The documentary features senior Indian military and security officials who were directly involved in the planning and execution of Operation Sindoor. It provides a rare behind-the-scenes account of India’s decision-making during the 88-hour campaign, including remarks from National Security Adviser Ajit Doval on deterrence and national security.

Doval emphasised that India’s generosity and restraint should not be mistaken for weakness, stressing that New Delhi was prepared to take risks and strike hard when national interests and citizens were threatened.

The production presents Operation Sindoor as a calibrated military response to the Pahalgam massacre, with the stated objective of dismantling terrorist infrastructure linked to the attack. It highlights India’s use of precision strikes against targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir, and notes that the operation concluded after 88 hours with an understanding to cease hostilities.

Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) has rejected the documentary’s account, describing it as “highly dramatised, coloured and factually inaccurate.” ISPR accused India of attempting to rewrite the outcome of the confrontation, dismissing the documentary as a “Bollywood-style” propaganda video. It claimed that India was projecting a military blunder as a successful endeavour and rejected assertions of “100 per cent mission success.”

ISPR further maintained that Pakistani forces had resisted the Indian offensive and inflicted losses on Indian aircraft. It argued that the fighting ended through communication between the Directors General of Military Operations of both countries rather than through a decisive Indian victory. Pakistan also disputed India’s chronology of events, questioning the portrayal of the Pahalgam attack and subsequent military action.

The significance of the Discovery documentary lies in the access it provides to Indian officials who were directly involved in the operation.

Unlike the official statements issued during the conflict, the film revisits the campaign through detailed accounts from commanders and national security officials, offering a fuller picture of how India’s response was planned and executed. It places India’s version of events firmly on record, challenging Pakistan’s narrative and exposing the divergence between the two sides’ interpretations of the confrontation.

Agencies