NEW DELHI – Two top Indian military commanders escaped the Pakistan Air Force’s (PAF) bombing near an Indian defence installation in the state of Jammu and Kashmir on February 27, sources in the Indian defence and security establishment said on Monday.
“Northern Army Commander Lt Gen Ranbir Singh and 16 Corps Commander Lt Gen Paramjit Singh had stepped out of the Brigade Headquarters “minutes before” the bomb fell,” the sources added.
The two commanders, top sources in the defence and security establishment told ThePrint, had left for a nearby post when the PAF bomb fell into the compound of the Brigade Headquarters. This post was less than 700 metres from the spot where the bomb struck.
The Pakistan Air Force dropped the H-4 Stand-Off Weapon (SOW), a precision-guided glide bomb while retaliating to the 26 February ‘non-military’, as claimed by Indian Air force, an airstrike in Balakot to destroy alleged terror infrastructure of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist group.
Following the retaliatory strike, Pakistan military spokesperson Major Gen. Asif Ghafoor claimed that the PAF set out to execute the attack in a way to “made sure that there was no collateral damage”.
“Because we are a responsible state and want peace, we decided that we will not use any military target,” Ghafoor emphasised on the day of the first ever aerial clashes between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
The sole purpose of this action was to demonstrate our right, will and capability for self-defence. “We do not wish to escalate but are fully prepared if forced into that paradigm,” Ghafoor maintained.
Nevertheless, Indian defence sources claim they heard in Pakistani radio communications that the PAF intended to hit Indian military assets.
Tensions between India and Pakistan heightened in mid-February when a total of 40 Indian soldiers were killed in a suicide attack in Pulwama district.
Since the February clashes, the first direct communication between Pakistan Prime Minister Khan and his counterpart Narendra Modi was established this Sunday (26 May).
However, the Northern Command and the Indian Army headquarters did not respond to this development as yet.
