Former CDS General Anil Chauhan’s fresh account of India’s strikes near Kirana Hills, close to Sargodha in Pakistan, during Operation Sindoor differs from India’s original public position articulated in May 2025.Kirana Hills is associated with Pakistan’s nuclear programme. Speaking on Tuesday, at an event organised by Vivekananda International Foundation, the former CDS revealed new details about the 15-month-old confrontation between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. He said an Indian loitering munition had “accidentally” hit Kirana Hills while searching for Pakistani radars.General Chauhan, who retired on May 31, explained that India had sent numerous loitering munitions towards the Sargodha area. Kirana Hills is located about 10 km north of the Pakistani city. According to him, these munitions can loiter for roughly two hours while searching for a target. If they fail to locate one, they are designed to strike a target or designated area anyway.General Chauhan said that one such loitering munition “must have come and hit one of those hills”.His remarks represent a reversal of India’s official position in May 2025. At the time, Air Marshal AK Bharti, then Director General of Air Operations, dismissed the suggestion that India had struck the site. Responding to a question about reports that Kirana Hills housed nuclear installations, he said: “Thank you for telling us that Kirana Hills houses some nuclear installations. We did not know about it. We have not hit Kirana Hills.”General Chauhan’s words now confirm, rather than deny, that a strike apparently occurred near or on a nuclear-linked site, even if it was unintentional. This marks a shift from India’s position in May 2025: from saying that Kirana Hills had not been hit to acknowledging that an Indian munition likely struck the hills, albeit unintentionally.Back in May 2025, shortly after Operation Sindoor, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ruled out a radiation leak or radioactive release from any nuclear facility in Pakistan.However, the IAEA statement addressed only the question of radiation leakage. It did not establish whether a conventional strike had physically occurred near or at Kirana Hills. In other words, the statement neither confirmed nor denied that a strike had taken place; it only indicated that no radioactive release had been detected.Against the backdrop of the IAEA statement and General Chauhan’s latest remarks, there have also been unrelated claims by US President Donald Trump that Washington helped avert a “nuclear war” between India and Pakistan. India’s Ministry of External Affairs has rejected that characterisation, maintaining that the conflict remained conventional.The IAEA’s “no radiation leak” statement and General Chauhan’s latest admission that a loitering munition likely struck Kirana Hills are therefore not necessarily contradictory. A conventional munition could have struck near or on Kirana Hills without breaching or damaging nuclear-related facilities in a manner that resulted in a measurable radioactive release.General Chauhan’s remarks help close a year-old information gap, but they also raise important questions. Kirana Hills is associated with Pakistan’s nuclear programme, and even an accidental strike near such a site carries considerable strategic significance. In a nuclear-armed rivalry, uncertainty over whether nuclear-adjacent infrastructure has been hit — deliberately or accidentally — can influence threat perceptions, signalling and crisis behaviour.General Chauhan’s comments about Kirana Hills also came alongside other revelations, including his assessment of Pakistan’s ability to verify Indian losses and his reference to India’s stated principle of “always delivering the last strike” in an escalation ladder.In hindsight, some of his remarks may be intended not merely as a technical clarification but also to shape the retrospective narrative of Operation Sindoor: one in which India maintained the upper hand, controlled escalation and ultimately retained escalation dominance.