It says “shot down in Pakistani airspace”, which means it would have crossed LoC.
Clearly says both shot down in Pak airspace
You are nitpicking a tweet from Gen Ghafoor quoting MoFA at 11:19AM, approximately an hour after the events. Neither Asif Ghafoor, nor MoFA had direct access to the radar picture, they were just relaying Air Force's provided summary with Pakistan's official narrative of responsible proportionate retaliation baked in.
If you think that's a smoking gun exposing Pakistan, look at the other side. I am quoting AVM RGK Kapoor verbatim from the first official presser that IAF held about the Feb 27 events, almost a day after the events.
On 27th February at around 10:00 hours, IAF radars detected a large package of PAF aircrafts, heading towards the Indian territory, towards general area Jhangar. They breached Indian Air space west of Rajauri in the Sunderbani area. The ingressing aircraft were observed to be at various levels. IAF fighters including Mig 21, Su30 and Mirage 2000 were tasked to intercept the intruding PAF aircraft. PAF aircraft attempting to target our military installations were intercepted by the IAF fighters which foiled their attack. Although PAF bombs have fallen in the Indian Army compounds, however they were unable to cause damage to our military installations. In the aerial combat that ensued....
- Source 1* 1:42
Let's break it down.
- The pronoun is
'They' refers to PAF jets. There is no other subject in the sentence so no doubt he was referring to the aforementioned PAF jets.
'Breached' has only 1 meaning.
- The
'ingressing aircraft' doubles down on it, reaffirming the earlier, removing any doubt.
-
'intruding PAF aircraft' confirms it a third time that IAF wants to suggest PAF crossed LoC.
^^ How ironic is it that you claim you foiled the adversary's attack while admitting that they not only shot your jet in their territory but also landed ordnance inside your military compounds!
In June, ACM Dhanoa backed out from these claims. I quote him, again verbatim.
"They did not come into our air space.", "none of them (let me tell you) crossed into our territory"
'Pak didn't cross LoC during Feb 27 dogfight' - Source 2*
Can you answer this backtracking?
Remember, IAF spent 32+ hours to prepare the first statement and set the narrative. It was IAF's own AVM RGK Kapoor no less making the statement unlike Pakistan where an Army General quoted MoFA quoting PAF. Despite having the advantage of direct statement, IAF mentioned three times that PAF crossed LoC to paint PAF as aggressor.
To further that narrative, AVM Kapoor showed a shard from an exploded AMRAAM. Imagine how important this all was, that they flew a hunk of metal from J&K to Delhi, you can't say they didn't prepare or plan this!
After this first presser on Feb 28th evening, how does the picture look.
- IAF claims about Balakot are already starting to unravel and neutral media is starting to question IAF's claims.
- PAF fulfills its promise of retaliation, lands ordnance in J&K leaving just a shard of AMRAAM in IAF possession
- PAF has downed a Mig21 capturing the pilot.
- IAF claims to have shot down an F16 with not an iota of evidence.
- IAF knows it has downed its own Mi17 but the world is slowly starting to pick up. Even early media reports quotes locals hearing a "Loud" bang.
- 7 unfortunate souls passed away and IAF knows it can't hide the bodies.
- IAF again claims an F16 without an iota of credible evidence. Not a rivet, not a video, not a pilot, nothing but smoke, literal smoke!
Now why would IAF want to lie and say PAF crossed LoC when PAF said it didn't. Why would IAF say that a force with less than fifth the budget and less than half the size crossed into its home to land blows. This completely goes against what India wants to project, i.e. it thwarted PAF and deterred it from getting anywhere near.
The only logical reason is the Mi17 whose wreckage lay with 7 bodies out in the open. There were 2 possibilities and IAF took 1 of them
1- IAF could save some face. It is unimaginably embarrassing to admit that we shot our own Mi17 60kms from the hot zone, we were just that scared!
2- distant second. IAF could let PAF take the bait it threw by claiming PAF crossed. PAF was legitimately given the chance by IAF themselves to claim Mi17 but IAF knew it shot it in fratricide. IAF then had a good chance to drag PAF in mud by admitting 'blue on blue' later which it had to any way. PAF would be pulling its hair in such a case for it would diminish an otherwise glorious page in its history.
Both these didn't fly much. PAF didn't take the bait and IAF found out the rough way that tweeps can't believe how IAF let a flock of birds cross without shooting any.
Hoping against hope, IAF take a month for things to die down but they don't. Indians want blood just like Pakistanis wanted Blood on Feb 26th but there was no Feb 28th for Indian public.
Month down the line, early April:
No evidence of F16 shows up, how can it when there was no F16 shot down. No US support to support Indian narrative, no neutral support. What does IAF do, it continues the same story by
- Quoting 'soldiers' on LoC who saw 2 planes go down! Yes, our soldiers loyal to our forces and nation saw an adversary's jet go down. Of course!
- Radar pictures in a controlled media briefing that of course cannot be verified for 'official secrecy'. All you see is a couple of images in a power point presentation. No credible journalist buys it but they can't openly go against IAF as it would be 'unpatriotic'.
- References to smoke trails, parachutes, all Conjecture and a kid can rip bullet holes through those theories.
As a rule of thumb, when 1.2 billion people desperate for evidence can only find seemingly suspended smoke trails in the air as the only evidence of shooting down a fighter jet, you know you've lost.
Sorry, but it is what it is!
Additional Notes: It takes new ACM RKS Bhadauria to come in and publicly admit what the public already knew that Mi17 was fratricide. This was deliberately delayed to give former ACM BS Dhanoa a dignified exit and not have him face humiliation of admitting IAF's major failure under his own watch!
Summary: Gen Ghafoor said 2 IAF jets crossed while IAF spokesperson said PAF crossed!
Who was right? Well technically both were wrong.
Gen Ghafoor less so because 1 IAF craft definitely crossed, the infamous Mig21 Bison but since PAF couldn't admit that they launched an AMRAAM on a Su30 across in J&K which never crossed, they said 2 jets crossed.
Source 1:
- Start at 1:42
Source 2:
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Defense Analyst
