A lionhearted soldier, IAF Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, who chased three Pakistani F-16 jets with MiG-21 and shot down one of them, is a true hero in all sense. The tale of the brave soldier is a story worth telling.
It was the early morning at about 8:45am on Wednesday, when Mohammad Razzaq Chaudhry a local villager, located barely 7km from the Line of Control (LoC) in PoK’s Bhimber district, saw that a dogfight was going on up above in the sky. “Two aircrafts had caught fire but while one of them sped across the LoC, the other burst into flames and came down speedily,” reported The Dawn as narrated by Razzaq.
Just a few kilometers away, I saw a parachute falling out of the sky and a pilot emerged out of the parachute safe and sound. “The pilot, who was equipped with a pistol, asked the youngsters (nearby) whether it was India or Pakistan,” reported The Dawn. When one of them cunningly responded that it was India. The pilot shouted some slogans and asked which place exactly it was in India. To this, the same boy responded that it was Qilla’n (not in India). Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman urged that his “back was broken” and he needed water to drink.
Few of the local youth could not digest the slogans and picked up stones in their hand. On which, Abhinandan Varthaman shot a fire in the air. According to Razzaq then the Indian pilot ran a distance of half a kilometer in backward direction while pointing his pistol towards the boys who were chasing him. During this chase, he fired some more gunshots in the air to frighten them but to no avail. Afterwards, “He jumped into a small pond where he tried to swallow some documents and maps,” said Mohammad Razzaq.
Boys kept on asking him to drop his weapon and in the meanwhile one boy shot at his leg. Finally, he came out and said he should not be killed. The boys got hold of him from both arms. Some of them roughed him up, in a fit of rage, while others kept on stopping them. In the meanwhile, army personnel arrived there and took him into their custody and saved him from the wrath of the youths, he said.
In light of this, emotional messages are coming from all over the country and demanding the return of IAF pilot. Speaking of the concerns, the Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman’s father and Veteran Air Marshal Varthaman said, “Thank you, my friends, for your concern and wishes. I thank God for his blessings, Abhi is alive, not injured, sound in mind, just look at the way he talked so bravely…a true soldier…we are so proud of him. I am sure all your hands n blessings are on his head, prayers for his safe return, I pray that he does not get tortured, and comes home safe n sound in body and mind. Thank you all for being with us in this hour of need. We draw our strengths from your support and energy”.
Only way to not give in to this blackmail of this usual brigade is by treating him as a martyr until he returns- he is our lion who brought down F-16 and didn’t budge despite extreme hostilities – we need not be apologetic abt his capture https://t.co/jVgFnMffto
— Alok Bhatt (Modi Ka Parivar) (@alok_bhatt) February 28, 2019
Pakistan has declared the IAF Indian pilot as Prisoner of War (PoW) so in effect, he has to be treated like one according to the guidelines of Geneva Convention. Now, the whole world knows about him, and two videos of the Wing Commander are out which proves his safety. Pakistan is bound to return him safely to India.