Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has confirmed that the Pakistani pilot whose F-16 was shot down by Indian Air Force during an aerial combat on February 27 was lynched to death. Sitharaman acknowledged that the Pakistani pilot had indeed died after his aircraft was shot down by Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman’s MiG-21.
Sitharaman said, “I don’t want to rely on social media, but you may have seen on social media itself that a Pakistani air marshal, perhaps retired, claiming that the issue of two pilots. I have not double checked this, but I do want to ask, is it true? Two trained, top pilots of their countries. Both sons of air marshals. One returns to his country, but the other is unacknowledged by the country he died for. Truth is that the F-16 pilot, he was beaten up by villagers, who probably assumed that he was an Indian soldier. He was admitted to a hospital but I don’t think he survived.”
The Defence Minister did not reveal the name of the F-16 pilot, nor did she divulge any important details on the sensitive issue. Nirmala Sitharaman came down heavily on Pakistan for the terrorist country’s inhuman attitude of disowning its own soldiers. She said, “Pakistan never accepts when their soldiers are captured or killed.” Nirmala Sitharaman accused Pakistan of living “in a state of denial” while adding that Pakistan had not acknowledged its own men even during the Kargil war of 1999.
During the 1999 Kargil war, Pakistan had disowned the dead bodies of its own soldiers. After the Indian posts occupied by Pakistani Army intruders were cleared by the Indian Army, Pakistan simply refused to accept the dead bodies of its soldiers. For eleven years, Pakistan had remained in denial mode. Finally, it had acknowledged its troops had infiltrated into India and had also acknowledged that 453 of its officers and soldiers had been killed during the Kargil war.
It had been reported earlier that the Pakistani pilot had died after being lynched by a local Pakistani mob. As per an earlier report, he was mercilessly beaten and lynched by the Pakistani locals who mistook the Pakistani pilot to be an Indian. While the F-16 pilot was able to survive a catastrophic crash, the mob lynched him to death, which clearly showed the Pakistani hatred for India and its citizens. As per OneIndia, sources said that the uniform of the Pakistani pilot was torn when he landed. The source added, “To make the matters worse, the locals considered him of being an Indian pilot and beat him up very badly till he fell unconscious. Local police took him to the hospital, and the army was informed that an Indian pilot has been captured. Probably, this is the reason that without ascertaining the fact the Pakistani army claimed capturing two Indian pilots in order to address the emotions of Pakistanis.”
It is shameful how a Pakistani mob had lynched the Pakistani pilot to death believing him to be an Indian pilot. The terrorist country tried hard to brush this tragic incident under the carpet and simply disowned him. Even after being exposed about this, Pakistan has refused to acknowledge the loss of its pilot in what is only bound to exacerbate his family’s misery.
