Celebrating a 'Fantastic' victory

Last year on this day, PAF pilots shot down two Indian jets.

Pakistan is celebrating ‘Surprise Day’ as a tribute to a retaliatory attack by the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) on a botched Indian attempt to strike in Balakot on this day last year, reported Radio Pakistan on Thursday, with a ceremony being held in Islamabad and an air show in Karachi.

Addressing a ceremony held in connection with Surprise Day in Islamabad on Thursday, Air Chief Marshal Mujahid Anwar Khan said that we will not make any compromise on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Pakistan.

The Air Chief said Pakistan Air Force is professionally second to none and the force proved its professional superiority on this day last year during Operation Swift Retort and that we stood as an integrated force that is hard hitting and focused on its mission. Mujahid Anwar Khan proclaimed that Pakistan Air Force is one of the most respected and responsible air force of a peace-loving country.

"The Army briefed an international media team at Horan village near the site where an Indian Mig-21 fighter aircraft flown by pilot Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was shot down," the ISPR said. "The plane was shot down during a dogfight between Pakistani and Indian air forces in February last year," the statement read.

On February 26 last year, Indian fighter jets had entered into Pakistani territory with the intention to bomb a madrassah in Balakot, but had retreated in haste after the PAF scrambled its own jets in response. The Indian jets had dropped their payload in sovereign Pakistani territory near the old madrassah, but failed to inflict any material damage apart from damaging a few trees.

The next day, Pakistan had responded to the provocation by sending fighter jets across the Line of Control in a tit-for-tat response. The jets locked on to Indian military positions, then returned after issuing 'warning' shots to them. When India again sent fighter jets to chase the Pakistani jets down, the PAF had launched a successful 'surprise' attack, taking down two Indian fighter aircraft in an aerial dogfight.

"PAF shot down two Indian aircraft inside Pakistani airspace," then military spokesman Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor had tweeted on February 27, adding that one aircraft had fallen in Azad Jammu and Kashmir. In the dogfight that ensued, he crossed into Pakistan territory where he was struck by a missile. Varthaman ejected and descended safely in the village of Horran in Pakistan administered Kashmir, approximately 7 km from the Line of Control.

The pilot of one of the downed aircraft was arrested when he landed in Pakistani territory. The pilot, identified as Wing Commander (Wg Cmdr) Abhinandan Varthaman, was subsequently released as a gesture of goodwill by Prime Minister Imran Khan.

In August last year, the two pilots who brought down the Indian planes earlier in February were conferred military awards by President Arif Alvi. Wg Cmdr Noman Ali Khan was conferred with Sitara-i-Jur’at (Star of Valour), while Group Captain Faheem Ahmad Khan and Sq Ldr Hassan Mahmood Siddiqui were granted the Tamgha-i-Jur’at (Medal of Valour).

The Pakistani squadron leader Hassan Siddiqui successfully achieved the target, recalling the memory of 7 September 1965 when Air Commodore Muhammad Mahmood Alam SJ downed nine Indian Air Force aircraft during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, including five Hawker Hunter aircraft on one sortie. Siddiqui, who belonged to Karachi, received a hero’s welcome as soon as his plane touched down after downing Indian jets which violated Pakistan’s territorial integrity.

In an address to the nation after the incident, PM Imran had offered Indian PM Narendra Modi the chance to sit down for a dialogue over Kashmir. However, Modi had not responded positively to the offer, instead annexing occupied Kashmir in August later in the year.

It is pertinent to mention here that last year, Pakistan also put on display a statue of an Indian Air Force’s Wing Commander Abhinandan The life-sized statue of the Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman had been installed at a museum in Karachi run by the PAF.

After the arrest of Abhinandan, the Indian wing commander, the Pakistan Army released a video that saw Abhinandan commenting on the tea and said, 'Tea is fantastic,' which has also gone viral on social media.