February 27, 2019, is a memorable day for Pakistan as Pakistan Air Force (PAF) shattered Indian dream of invincibility and military supremacy by shooting down two Indian air craft and and above all capturing an IAF pilot.
Modi government’s sabre rattling after a suicide attack on February 14, 2019 in Pulwama district
of occupied Jammu and Kashmir, resulted in dangerous escalation between two nuclear armed countries in South Asia in February last year.
The suicide attack by a young Kashmiri Adil Ahmed Dar killed more than 40 Indian soldiers ahead of general election in the region.
A convoy of vehicles carrying security personnel on the Jammu Srinagar National Highway was attacked by a vehicle-borne suicide bomber at Lethpora in the Pulwama district, in Occupied Jammu and Kashmir territory.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 40 Central Reserve Police Force personnel and the attacker. The government in India promptly held Pakistan responsible for a situation it created itself with its atrocious and brutal tackling of an indigenous freedom movement in Kashmir.
The incident added fuel to the already tense bilateral ties. Pakistan condemned the attack, and
denied it had anything to do with it. Pakistan also offered swift action if New Delhi provided any credible evidence.
The attack, however, snowballed into a major crisis threatening security of the region with Indian war mongering. Indian fighter jets crossed the Line of Control in the last week of February and the country’s military claimed to have conducted a “surgical strike” in Balakot area in Pakistan.
New Delhi also claimed to destroy a terrorist camp with 300-350 casualties in the attack. Pakistan denied the claim, saying neither was there any camp nor any casualty.
Independent reports, including high resolution satellite images reviewed by Reuters, also contradicted the Indian claims.
Pakistan Air Force (PAF) jets on the other day crossed the LoC in a tit-for-tat move to Indian territory, and in a dogfight an Indian MiG-21 was shot down on the Pakistani side of the border.
After striking down the Indian fighter jet, Pakistan arrested the pilot, who ejected himself after being hit in the airspace of Pakistan in Azad Jammu and Kashmir — something that came as an unexpected setback for India exposing the country’s claims of invincibility and supremacy in the military power.
Hours after shooting down the IAF jets, Pakistan military released a video statement of the captured Indian pilot.“I’m wing commander Abhinandan and my service number is 27981,” the arrested Indian pilot said in his video statement. “I’m a flying pilot of the Indian air force (IAF),” he continued in his statement.
Pakistan Air Force hit the Indian targets as a demonstration of its defense capability in response to the violation of Line of Control by Indian fighter jets on Feb 26, Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement.
According to the DG ISPR, Indian fighter jets violated Line of Control (LoC) and in a robust response, the PAF destroyed two aircraft of IAF inside Pakistani airspace.
Pakistan Air Force (PAF) in a recent exhibition of the parts of the Indian MiG-21 warplane shot down by the PAF on February 27 last year also shown the four missiles, which could not be fired by the pilot during the air clash on the fateful day.
According to experts all four missiles in Indian MiG 21 were not fired and found intact, two of them were partially burnt. The missiles also kept at the exhibition exposed Indian claims of shooting down a Pakistani F 16 warplane by the captured Indian pilot.
India had claimed that Abhinandan had fired a missile before being hunted by the Pakistani pilots. But the false claim exposed with presence of all four Indian missiles without being fired.
Prime Minister Imran Khan after the standoff with India, announced to return the Indian Air Force pilot Abhinandan Varthaman in a goodwill gesture.
Pakistani officials returned the IAF pilot Abhinandan to Indian officials at Wahga Border crossing on March 1st.
Pakistan released captured Indian pilot as a gesture of peace, in order to de-escalate the soaring tensions with New Delhi. However, the gesture was not accepted in good faith and subsequent events demonstrated Indian hegemonic designs and a state policy of persistent escalation and confrontational behavior with Pakistan and the people of Kashmir.
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