- Joined
- Feb 21, 2012
- Messages
- 6,017
- Likes
- 3,364
IAF guards President, PM and Defence Minister from Pakistan terror in Pokhran
With the Hyderabad bomb blasts triggering a security alert about Pakistan-engineered terror attacks against India, the Indian Air Force (IAF) wasn't taking any chances guarding President Pranab Mukherjee, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Defence Minister A K Antony. For three hours on February 22, a fully-armed IAF Su-30MKI combat plane kept a tight but unobtrusive combat-mode vigil over Pokhran in Rajasthan— about 80 km from the Pakistan border—where the trio had gone to witness the IAF combat exercise codenamed 'Iron Fist'. This is the first time a Su-30MKI had carried out a 'Combat Air Patrol and Surveillance' (CAPS) mission in combat-mode over the Rajasthan skies so close to the border with Pakistan.
It was also the first time that a team as powerful as the president, the prime minister and the defence minister visited Pokhran together. And it is also after 14 years that an Indian prime minister was visiting Pokhran—in 1998, after the BJP-led NDA government carried out a surprise nuclear test at Pokhran, prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee accompanied the then defence minister George Fernandes to inspect the site.
This time, a surprise visitor from the BJP was Jaswant Singh, who was invited in his capacity as a former defence minister by both Antony and Air Chief Marshal NAK Browne
IAF guards President, PM and Defence Minister from Pakistan terror in Pokhran - The New Indian Express
