Indian Air Force had earlier presented ‘irrefutable evidence’ that it crashed the aircraft
Pakistan’s military spokesman on Monday rejected India’s latest reiteration that it downed a Pakistani fighter jet in February, adding that false claims cannot become truths with repetition.
“Repetitions don’t make truth of a lie. Despite claiming possession of evidence on shooting F16, IAF still short of presenting it,” Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) chief Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor said on Twitter. “Don’t overlook Pakistan’s silence for not drum beating losses on Indian side. Fact is that PAF shot down two IAF jets, wreckage seen on ground by all.”
Earlier, India’s air force presented what it called “irrefutable evidence” that it downed a Pakistani jet after a U.S. magazine, citing top defense officials, had cast doubt on India’s assertion.
India lost an MiG-21 Bison in the aerial skirmish and its pilot was captured by Pakistan and later returned, cooling one of the most serious military confrontations between the nuclear-armed rivals in decades. But India has long maintained that its pilot first fired on an F-16, sending the damaged jet crashing into Pakistan-administered Kashmir—something Islamabad says never happened.
In a press conference Air Vice Marshal R.G.K Kapoor repeated this assertion, reading out the evidence gathered by India and displaying radar images he said proved the Pakistan jet was struck and crashed.
“There is no doubt that two aircraft went down in the aerial engagement on Feb. 27, 2019,” Kapoor said, reading from a prepared statement. India’s air force “has irrefutable evidence of not only the fact that F-16 was used” on the day of the dogfight, but that it was shot down by the Indian jet, he added.
Kapoor said further “credible information and evidence” backed this version of events but could not be released due to confidentiality concerns.
It comes just days after Foreign Policy magazine cited two unnamed senior U.S. defense officials who said that U.S. personnel recently conducted a count of Pakistan’s F-16s and found none missing.
The magazine quoted one of the officials as saying that Pakistan invited the U.S. to physically count its F-16 fleet.
The dogfight happened after Pakistani aircraft entered Indian airspace a day after Indian aircraft carried out an airstrike on what it said was a “terrorist training camp” in Pakistan. That in turn was in response to a suicide bombing on Feb. 14 in India-Occupied Kashmir that killed 40 Indian troops and which was claimed by a militant group based in Pakistan but perpetrated by a local separatist.
Doubt has also been cast over the success of India’s airstrike, which Amit Shah, president of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has claimed killed 250. Pakistan denied that there was any damage or casualties. Independent reporting by multiple local and international outlets who visited the site also found no evidence of a major terrorist training camp—or of any infrastructure damage at all.
Pakistan said it shot down two Indian planes and lost none of its own, but India said that it lost only one aircraft.
Initially Pakistan said it had captured two Indian pilots but the military later clarified it had just one pilot in custody.