Exactly !!
One can easily cook up a conspiracy theory that this was done to build opinion on NW operation.
But of course, blaming a "foreign hand" seems to be the in thing here.
One fairytale conspiracy theory could be: Lets plan an operation where we don't lose much, and we either get a justification to do an operation in NW or blame India and throw back some of the pressure they are building on Mumbai attacks.
Of course the theory is stupid, but so are most conspiracy theories like 9/11 and 26/11 are inside jobs. etc
One can easily cook up a conspiracy theory that this was done to build opinion on NW operation.
But of course, blaming a "foreign hand" seems to be the in thing here.
All your conjectures hold true for an assumption of this being a false flag operation by ISI to justify its impending NW operation to the local population..
Just like you are painting a scenario of a foreign ( with an added focus on India) hand using these conjectures, I can paint a false flag operation scenario with the same ones.. The IL 76 was not destroyed because they were told to not destroy any major equipment since this engagement was supposed to be just a smoke screen to fool the local population and ISI did not want any major loss to the PAF.
See, how easy it is to stitch together a bunch of conjectures and come up with a fairy tale of your choice
One fairytale conspiracy theory could be: Lets plan an operation where we don't lose much, and we either get a justification to do an operation in NW or blame India and throw back some of the pressure they are building on Mumbai attacks.
Of course the theory is stupid, but so are most conspiracy theories like 9/11 and 26/11 are inside jobs. etc
The first rule of investigation: who is the beneficiary of such kind of loss.