ISLAMABAD: The military on Wednesday said that India is fabricating “outlandish, Bollywood-style scripts” to distort the history of the May confrontation between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, five months after air strikes brought South Asia to the brink of war, Dawn.com reported

The sharp rebuke from Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) came in response to claims by a top Indian military official that more than 100 Pakistani soldiers were killed during the May flare-up.

A day earlier, Indian Army’s Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) Lt Gen Rajiv Ghai told reporters that Indian forces had been fully prepared for escalation.

He warned that any further Pakistani hostilities could have proved “catastrophic” for Islamabad.

Without taking any names, a statement issued by Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said: “The contradictions in the Indian Army presser are so evident that they should not be dignified with a response. Evidently, the Indian leadership is attempting to mould history to its liking by inventing outlandish, Bollywood-style scripts.

“It appears that [the] Indian army and the political leadership have not been able to reconcile with the idea that they have been decisively beaten in Marka-i-Haq, and that their falsehoods have been fully exposed.”

The ISPR statement dismissed these assertions as electoral posturing ahead of state elections in Bihar and West Bengal, accusing Indian leaders of “parroting the same delusional, fabricated and provocative propaganda that they regurgitate before every state election”.

“It is saddening to see the military leadership of a nuclear-armed country issuing irresponsible statements under immense political pressure,” the ISPR statement said, warning that “unnecessary chest thumping” could “lead to serious consequences for peace and stability in South Asia”.

The military’s media wing went further, claiming India had become “the epicentre of regional instability, bent upon adventurism and hegemonism to the detriment of its people and its neighbours”.

Pakistan’s military concluded its statement with a stark warning: “Every act of aggression will be dealt with a swift, resolute and intense response that will be remembered by posterity.”

The exchange comes a week after Pakistan’s military leadership cautioned against any “imaginary new normal” in bilateral relations, promising a “new normal of swift retributive response” to any Indian aggression.

The conflagration in May was triggered by an attack on tourists in India-held Kashmir, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based fighters without offering proof — an allegation Islamabad has consistently denied, while calling for an independent investigation.

Following Indian air strikes on May 7 targeting what it described as militant camps, Pakistan claimed to have shot down multiple Indian aircraft in retaliatory action.

A tense 72-hour period of tit-for-tat strikes on military installations followed, ending only after reported diplomatic intervention from Washington on May 10.

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2025