A recent Foreign Policy report debunked India’s claims that it shot down a Pakistani fighter jet in the aftermath of Pulwama Attack in IHK on February 14. It states that the United States (US) officials did a count of Islamabad’s F-16 jets recently and found that none were missing, according to two senior US defence officials.
After the Pulwama attack, tensions between Pakistan and India hiked. The media reports from the former country claimed that the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) employed the F-16 to target Indian military installations after crossing the Line of Control.
A piece, seemingly that of a missile, was shown as a “proof”, declaring that only an F-16 could have shot it down.
Further, the claims were made that prior to the shooting down of an Indian plane and its pilot’s capture, a PAF F-16 was shot down by Indian Air Force (IAF) MiG Bison. All of these claims were denied by Pakistan.
New Delhi further emphasized that the use of F-16 by Pakistan tantamounted to violation of a sales agreement with the US. However, the US State Department refused to comment in this regard.
One of the senior US defence officials, on the condition of anonymity, “with direct knowledge of the count” reported to Foreign Policy that Pakistan had invited the US to count its F-16 planes after the incident “as part of an end-user agreement signed when the foreign military sale was finalized”.
Moreover, Foreign Policy announced that Washington generally requires the countries it enters such agreements with, to allow for regular inspection of the equipment in question.
It was explained by the official that some of the aircraft were not immediately available for inspection after the Pak-India spit, so it took a while to the US personnel to account for all the jets.
Commenting on India’s bluff, Vipin Narang, an associate professor of Political Science at MIT, told FP that while this won’t affect Indian voters’ decisions, the impact will be on a regional level, affecting New Delhi’s future ties with Islamabad.
“As details come out, it looks worse and worse for the Indians,” Narang said. “It looks increasingly like India failed to impose significant costs on Pakistan, but lost a plane and a helicopter of its own in the process.”