(The crater where Indian military aircrafts released payload in Jaba village, Balakot, Pakistan.)
The Indian jets only damaged Imran Khan's Tsunami trees.
India on Sunday conceded for the first time that there were no casualties in the Balakot strike.
“The air strikes by India were just a warning,” said Union Minister Surinder Singh Ahluwalia in an interview with an Indian TV channel.
“Neither Prime Minister Narendra Modi nor any government spokesperson had given any figure on casualty of air strikes,” said Ahluwalia. “Rather, it was the Indian media and social media where the unconfirmed figures of terrorists killed were being calculated.”
Earlier, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said the Indian government would not share proof that “a very large number” of militants were reportedly killed in the Balakot air strikes on February 26, after doubts were raised that there were casualties in the attack that stoked tensions between the two nuclear-armed countries.
On February 26, Indian fighter jets had carried out air strikes in Balakot on what the Modi administration alleged were ‘militant camps’. Islamabad has denied any such camps existed.
On the same day, Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale had claimed that Indian Air Force (IAF) jets had destroyed a key ‘terror camp’ and killed scores of terrorists.
The figure informally leaked to the Indian media by the Indian government sources had put the number of slain terrorists at 300.
The Indian foreign secretary had stated that a very large number of terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of militants had been eliminated.
The attack site has been visited by several international news teams. Two Reuters reporters, who visited the area, quoted villagers as saying no militant camps existed in the area.
The Reuters team also found that villagers had heard four loud bangs at the time of the attack, but said only one person had been wounded by bomb shards.
It also said the damage from the strike was limited to about 15 pine trees being brought down in the area. Al Jazeera journalists also visited the attack site and quoted witnesses and local journalists as saying that the munitions dropped by the Indian aircraft had hit an uninhabited forest in Balakot. Additionally, Associated Press journalists visiting the site saw several large craters and upended trees but no sign of remnants of a terrorist training camp. And increasingly, questions are also being raised in the Indian media regarding the Indian government’s version of events.
Finally on Thursday, New Delhi presented what it claimed was ‘incontrovertible proof’ that Pakistan used its F-16 fighter jets in Wednesday’s air action in the form of the remains of an American-made missile.
“There is enough evidence to show that F-16s were used in this mission through their electronic signatures. Parts of AMRAAM air-to-air missile which is carried only on Pakistani F-16s was recovered east of Rajouri within the Indian territory,” announced Indian Air Vice Marshal RGK Kapoor, flanked by two other top officials from India’s other two military services.
By insisting that the missile could only have been launched from an F-16, the Indian military brass had hoped that presenting the wreckage would bolster their claim of having shot down a PAF jet of the type. However, in their haste to shift the narrative, the Indian military overlooked a crucial detail that could connect the wreckage to a batch of missiles sold to Taiwan.
Markings on the wreckage displayed by Indian generals at a much-vaunted news conference identified the missile as an AIM-120C-5 AMRAAM. The markings also identified the contract number of the missile as FA8675-05-C-0070.
A Google search The Express Tribune ran using the keyword ‘AMRAAM’ along with the serial number in question returned links to a US Department of Defense (DoD) document titled “Report to Congress on Department Of Defense Sales of Significant Military Equipment to Foreign Entities Fiscal Year 2009”.
The report revealed that contract number FA867505C0070 corresponded to a batch of AIM-120C-5 AMRAAM missiles supplied to Taiwan in a Foreign Military Sale worth $2.38 million.
The flare-up appeared to be easing on Saturday after Islamabad handed back captured IAF Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman Friday night.
“There was neither any compulsion nor any pressure to release the Indian pilot. Pakistan does not want regional peace to be put at stake for the sake of [Indian] politics,” Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said while addressing a news conference on Saturday, a day after Pakistan freed the IAF pilot.
However, the latest act of aggression by India came a day after the release of the pilot.
According to Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the situation is ‘relatively calm’ along the Line of Control (LoC) after heavy exchange of fire between Friday and Saturday night.
Two Pakistan Army soldiers embraced martyrdom in unprovoked and indiscriminate firing by Indian forces along LoC on Saturday, the military’s media wing said.
Following the Pulwama incident, the IAF fighter jets violated Pakistani airspace near LoC and were chased away by Pakistan Air Force (PAF) jets on February 26.
Living up to its promise to ‘surprise’ India, the very next day PAF fighter jets shot down two Indian warplanes and captured the IAF pilot after they intruded into its airspace while responding to a Pakistani aerial mission on targets inside occupied Kashmir.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has indirectly admitted the superiority of Pakistani military in the ongoing confrontation between the two countries triggered by the February 14 suicide attack on Indian forces in the Pulwama district of Occupied Kashmir.
“Today, we badly felt the absence of Rafale fighter jets [in our air force fleet]. If we had Rafale, the scenario would have been different,” Modi said while speaking at the India Today Conclave 2019 in New Delhi on Saturday.
Pakistan Air Force shot down two Indian warplanes on Wednesday – a day after Indian aircraft violated Pakistan’s airspace and dropped their payload in a jungle of Balakot district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
New Delhi claimed its forces also shot down a Pakistan F-16 fighter jet but failed to substantiate its claim with credible evidence.
Modi said he would like to make it very clear that in the past, the country ‘suffered’ due to vested interest over the Rafale jets.
The Modi administration has signed a multibillion-dollar deal with French defence manufacturer Dassault Aviation to acquire 36 Rafale jets in an effort to overhaul the Indian Air Force. The opposition accuses Modi of wrongdoing in the deal.
The Russian-made MiG jets form an important part of the IAF fleet. India started using the MiGs in 1963, but since 1970, 170 pilots and 40 civilians have been killed in accidents involving the aircraft series. Due to high rate of crashes, MiGs have come be called ‘flying coffins’.
“We continue to suffer due to the politicisation of the Rafale deal. The vested interests and politicisation has caused great harm to the nation’s interest,” he said.
Attacking the opposition, Modi said they [opposition] are welcome to criticise his government’s policies and find faults in its working. “But I request you not to oppose matters related to the nation’s security,” he said.
India forces have relentlessly shelling civilian population along the Line of Control (LoC) since the Pulwama attack and the intensity and frequency of their shelling has increased since the downing of their warplanes on Wednesday.
Pakistan Army troops have befittingly and comprehensively responded to India’s aggression along the LoC, targeting posts of Indian border guards with accuracy. Intelligence sources say there are at least 15 confirmed casualties on the Indian side, though the death toll might be high.
Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, the captured Indian Air Force (IAF) fighter pilot has once again praised the professional treatment he received during his two-day stay with the Pakistani military moments before he was handed over to the Indian authorities on Friday.
The Indian pilot also admitted that the Indian media exaggerates a lot when it comes to issues related to Pakistan. “They make a mountain out of a molehill,” he can be heard as saying in a new video surfaced on social media on Friday.
The wing commander, who was piloting the Indian Air Force MiG-21 fighter jet downed by the PAF, was captured by villagers in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. They were trying to lynch him before Pakistani troops reached the site to rescue him.
Varthaman, while narrating the whole episode of his capture inside the Pakistani territory, said Pakistani Army personnel protected from being lynched by a mob as he landed in parachute after his MiG-21 fighter jet was shot down by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF).
“Pakistan Army is a very professional service. I am very impressed with them,” he reiterated.
Transcript: My name is Wing Commander Abhinandan and I am fighter pilot at Indian Air Force (IAF). I was looking to find the target when your air force shot down my warplane. Thereafter, I was left with no other option but to leave my aircraft which had broken down. I ejected and my parachute opened and I was carrying a pistol … there were many people [on the ground]. I had only one option for safety, I dropped my gun and tried to run away. People followed me and they were full of passion. Then two personnel of Pakistan Army arrived and saved me from [mob]. They kept me safe and took me to their unit where I was given first-aid and then I was taken to a hospital where I was given further medical treatment. Pakistan Army is a very professional service. I am very impressed with them. Indian media exaggerates a lot. They make a mountain out of a molehill.
Pakistan Army won praise from Twitterati on both sides of the border for treating Abhinandan with “dignity and respect”.
Treatment of captured Indian pilot gets cross-border praise
Wing Commander Abhinandan had also praised the Pakistani military for rescuing him from an angry mob, in a video released earlier.
Makanday Katju, former supreme court judge of india became the admirer of pm Imran Khan after listening to his "wise and restrained peech" about de-escalating pak-india tensions. Katju spoke out via Twitter that previously he was not a fan of cricketer-yurned politian, however, this was no longer the case now. Imran Khan reached out to New Delhi after assuming the office of prime minister and wrote a letter to Indian PM Narendra Modi and suggested a meeting between the foreign ministers on the sideline of United Nations General assemly, but Pakistan did not get any positive response.
