Why WC Abhinandan Varthaman was released?
India conveyed that any attempt by Pakistan to either refuse to or delay the release of Abhinandan within 48 hours will result in the IAF conducting pulverising air-strikes lasting up to a week against all eight Brigades of the 60,000-strong, PoK-based Mujahid Force that comes under the command of the Pakistan Army’s (PA) Rawalpindi HQed X Corps.
For Pakistan, the Indian demand and threat posed a double whammy: how could the PAF justify its claim of having restored credible conventional deterrence vis-à-vis the IAF on February 27 if just a short while later it was seen unable to prevent the IAF from decimating the eight AK Brigades that were forward-deployed in PoK along the LoC, especially at a time when the PAF’s POL stockpiles were way below its 20-day general service aviation fuel reserves and consequently, at best, the PAF would have ceased to be an effective fighting force after the first four days of intensive flying under war-like conditions? Only later did become known that it was this very reason that caused Pakistan to extend the ban on its airspace for all India-origin commercial flights till June 28, 2020—this being the only way of minimising the quantum of CAP sorties required to be flown by the PAF along the IB, WB and LoC.
Thus, by the night of February 27, the stage was set for Pakistan to commence drafting a series of indefensible falsehoods in a vain attempt to domestically acquire moral ascendancy. The first falsehood, the brainchild of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Directorate, was selectively released on February 28 to a few Pakistani journalists (who are on the ISPR’s regular payrolls) who via their respective VBlogs claimed that India, with Israel’s help, was all set to fire 12 missiles of an unspecified type from Rajasthan against five sites inside Pakistan. The second consequent falsehood, also the ISPR’s brainchild, was next propagated first by Pakistan’s PM Imran Ahmed Khan Niazi himself during a press-conference with local journalists on the same day, during which he also went on to claim that Pakistan had achieved success in thwarting such Indian missile-strikes, but did not go into specifics. It was only in the afternoon of March 1 that the Pakistani PM revealed on the floor of Pakistan’s National Assembly that Abhinandan would be released unconditionally later that same day as a unilateral gesture of goodwill. Three days later, on March 4, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi made the final sensational claim: it was Pakistan’s magnanimity that had resulted in Abhinandan’s swift and unconditional release and that it was this gesture that was responsible for thwarting India’s planned missile-strikes.
In addition, a series of elaborately-staged actions followed throughout March 2019 to try to reinforce the earlier falsehoods about India’s planned missile-strikes and to justify the continued denial of transit overflights by India-origin airliners through Pakistani airspace. For instance, on March 4, 2019 at around 11am a PAF-operated Falco UAS, which had taken off from Bahawalpur Airport, entered Indian airspace near the BSF’s Soorma and K K Tibba outposts at Anupgarh in Rajasthan’s Sri Ganganagar district. The UAS was intercepted and shot down with 30mm cannon-fire by a Su-30MKI belonging to Jodhpur-based 31 ‘Lions’ Sqn with Su-30MKIs. Debris of this UAS fell just inside Pakistan. Five days later, Indian Army (IA) troops shot down a locally-made Pakistani drone in Sri Ganganagar sector (Rajasthan) as it entered Indian airspace 7.30pm. Earlier in the day, a similar drone tried to enter Indian territory at 5am at Hindumalkot border near Sri Ganganagar, but the drone had to take u-turn as it was sighted by IA troops who started firing. Another such drone was destroyed after it came across in Sri Ganganagar on March 24 evening. The drone was near the Satrana and Jagdev border outposts in the area when it was detected by radars, which led to anti-aircraft guns opening up to prevent its ingress further into Indian territory.
And yet in Pakistan the debate still rages on about the swift and unconditional release of Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman; while the PAF till this day has not been able to produce any video or HUD camera imagery of its air-strikes on Indian targets on the morning of February 27, 2019; nor has any native of Jammu & Kashmir UT been able to capture any video footage of the Su-30MKI that the PAF claims to have downed on that same day—this being the most embarrassing reality, especially if one were to believe Islamabad’s repeated claims about every Muslim native of J & K UT preferring Pakistan’s two-nation theory and rejecting secular India.