April 05
India’s claim that one of its fighter pilots shot down a Pakistani F-16 fighter jet in an aerial combat between the two Asian nuclear powers in February appears to be wrong.
Two senior U.S. defense officials with direct knowledge of the situation told Foreign Policy that U.S. personnel recently counted Islamabad’s F-16s and found none missing.
These findings directly contradict the account of officials on the Indian side, who said that Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman managed to shoot down a Pakistani F-16 before his own plane was downed by a Pakistani missile.
The count, conducted by U.S. authorities on the ground in Pakistan, sheds doubt on New Delhi’s version of events, suggesting that Indian authorities may have misled the international community about what actually happened that day.
The news comes just days ahead of India’s general elections, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking another term in office for his tough stance on Pakistan, india has also been officially celebrating the success of the Air strikes.
The ruling party BJP president Amit Shah had also during an election rally claimed that 250 Jaish e Muhammad operatives had been killed in the Air strikes that Indian Air Force conducted in Pakistan’s Balakot, he also claimed that they had destroyed a camp of the Militant outfit Jaish, Satellite images accessed by Reuters proved later, that the Jaish camp is still intact.
Amit Shah, the BJP president ridiculed the foreign media, “We should trust our own media, not the foreign one.”
The tensions between India and Pakistan that have been the worst since 2016, worsened further when a Kashmiri youth, Adil Ahmed Dar rammed his car into a CRPF convoy on Kashmir highway killing 49 Government Force personnel.
The news is unlikely to sway Indian voters, Vipin Narang, an associate professor of political science at MIT told Foreign Policy adding that the way the events have unfolded may affect India’s efforts to deter Pakistan in the future.
The dogfight between the two nations occurred on Feb. 27, when India claimed that a group of Pakistani jets entered its airspace in response to the first Indian air raid on Pakistani territory since a 1971 war.
India scrambled its own jets and gave chase. During the aerial battle that ensued, a pilot of Indian Air force, Abhinandan Varthaman took a missile hit and ejected safely into Pakistani territory.
He was captured by the Pakistani army and released days later in an effort to de-escalate the crisis.
Some of the aircraft were not immediately available for inspection due to the conflict, so it took U.S. personnel several weeks to account for all of the jets, the official said.
But now the count has been completed, and “all aircraft were present and accounted for,” the official said.