16/05/2025
Our neighbors always make false claims...must read last and second last paragraph. and if you have friends from that side, share with them.
The second airstrike, a retaliatory one by Pakistan, was conducted in the daytime on 27 February, inside Indian-administered Kashmir. During this airstrike, a dogfight between Indian and Pakistani fighter jets resulted in the downing of an Indian MiG-21 Bison by the Pakistan Air Force. Its pilot, Wing Commander Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, was captured by the Pakistani military and later returned to India on 1 March.
On the same hours of PAF retaliatory strikes on 27 February 2019, an Indian Mi-17 helicopter was brought down by friendly fire in which all IAF airmen on board were killed, including Squadron Leaders Siddharth Vashisht and Ninad Mandavgan. IAF Chief RKS Bahaduria acknowledged IAF's failure only a year latter on 4 October 2019, terming friendly fire as "a big mistake". Resultantly Group Captain Suman Roy Choudhry Chief Operations Officers (COO) of Srinagar Air Force Station was dismissed from his service in 2023.
Aftermath analysis of open-source satellite imagery by the American Atlantic Council's Digital Forensics Laboratory,[29] San Francisco-based Planet Labs, European Space Imaging and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute[32] concluded that India did not hit any targets of significance on the Jaba hilltop site near Balakot in Pakistan.
On 10 April 2019, one and a half months later, a group of international journalists, who were taken to the Jaba hilltop in a tightly controlled trip arranged by the Pakistani government, although unable to make a knowledgeable evaluation, found the largest building there to show no evidence of damage or recent rebuilding efforts.
The US count of PAF's F-16 fleet confirmed PAF lost no aircraft during its dogfight with IAF. The claim of IAF of shooting down a F-16 was also rejected by various international observers
