Islamabad: Pakistan awarded gallantry awards to 138 of its soldiers posthumously on the country’s Independence Day on August 14. This is a dead giveaway that they were killed during Operation Sindoor.
Operation Sindoor was launched by India on May 7 in retaliation to the Pahalgam terror attack of April 22 in which 26 innocents were gunned down by Pakistani terrorists. The four-day military conflict was halted by India after Pakistan pleaded for a ceasefire on May 10.
Despite suffering heavy losses, Pakistan put up a brave face and attempted to tell the world that it got the better of India. Not only did Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir elevate himself to the rank of Field Marshal, he also decorated himself with the Hilal-e-Jurat, the country’s second highest wartime gallantry award.
However, the cat got out of the bag after Samaa TV revealed the names of 138 Pakistani Army personnel honoured posthumously — all suffixed with the title ‘Shaheed’ — before hurriedly scrubbing the list from its website.
The awards were announced by President Asif Ali Zardari ‘for outstanding courage, gallantry, and supreme sacrifice during Operation Bunyanun Marsoos.’ But the roll call of the dead underlined the scale of losses suffered by Pakistan’s military machine in Operation Sindoor.
According to the Samaa list, four personnel were awarded the Tamgha-e-Jurat, one the Sitara-e-Basalat, four the Tamgha-e-Basalat, and 129 received the Imtiazi Sanad—all posthumously. What was meant as a solemn recognition of sacrifice instead inadvertently confirmed what Islamabad has tried to hide: the Pakistan Army paid a heavy price for shielding and nurturing terror proxies.
Among others, Air Chief Zaheer Ahmad Babar Sidhu received the Hilal-e-Jurat, Navy Chief Admiral Naveed Ashraf the Nishan-e-Imtiaz, and several fighter pilots the Sitara-e-Jurat. Civilian leaders, including deputy prime minister Ishaq Dar, defence minister Khawaja Asif, and former foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, were also honoured.
Between the jihadi elite neutralised on May 7 and the 138 Pakistani soldiers now confirmed dead, Operation Sindoor has left Pakistan’s military-political nexus bloodied and humiliated. What Islamabad hails as ‘martyrdom’ is, in reality, the toll of India’s most audacious cross-border retaliation in decades—a campaign that has struck at the very heart of Pakistan’s terror state.
The hurried removal of Samaa TV’s report underlines the deep embarrassment within Pakistan: in trying to glorify its dead, it inadvertently confirmed the scale of India’s strike and the losses inflicted on its armed forces.
Netizens erupted in derision after Munir awarded himself for gallantry, dubbing it the ‘ultimate flex,’ mocking the gesture as a hollow attempt to validate a failed campaign.
