——- General from Indian Army, Navy and Air Force hold outrageous press briefing at New Delhi
——- Found answerless to questions by own media, skip answers to many
——- Foreign media not invited, photographers invited in huge number
——- Tri Services press briefing dubbed as a colorful circus by world media, defense analysts.
From Christina Palmer
NEW DELHI- When Pakistan Army’s Chief Spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor and his Prime Minister said that Pakistan carried out air strikes inside India just to tell India that Pakistan was very much capable of striking back in India if India strikes, both of them, at all, did not know that their assertions would be officially confirmed by none other but India’s own serving Generals and that too within 24 hours. That was what happened when Indian government, on Thursday evening, asked its three 2-Star Generals, Major General Surinder Singh Mahal of Indian Amy, Indian Navy’s Rear Admiral RS Gujral and IAF’s Air Vice Marshal RGK Kapoor to hold a ‘comprehensive’ briefing for the media to explain that timeline and ‘fact-sheet’ of the ongoing Indo-Pak military tussle. The Indian Generals admitted clearly that Pakistan Air Force did respond to IAF’s act and PAF managed to lock targets inside India, fired bombs at the selected targets and went back, a perfect admission of the same what Pakistan army and Pakistan Government had stated earlier.
The media here was told that a high profile briefing by representatives of the three combat services of India would be held at 5 pm but at 5 pm it was shifted to 7 pm. It is pertinent to mention here that no formal invite to attend the said briefing was sent to Delhi-based foreign media and from the local Indian media, it was the majority of the photojournalists that were invited while the number of the actual journalists was very few. All the three Generals were looking extremely nervous with body languages suggesting them being completely out of confidence. To almost every question, they were found first looking at the coordinator of the briefing. AVM Kapoor of the IAF was the first one to talk to media and he admitted that and IAF jet was shot down by PAF and the IAF pilot was arrested by Pakistan Army but added by saying that IAF also shot down a PAF F-16 jet, wreckage of which fell inside Pakistan. When asked by a journalist about any proof of IAF shooting down PAF’s F-16, the AVM of IAF was answerless but opted to say that India was in possession of a piece of an air-to-air missile (AMRAAM) that the Pakistani F-16 aircraft dropped in Rajouri sector and later that piece would be shown. When asked by another journalist that the said piece or even a whole missile could not prove that IAF shot down and F-16, he refused to answer further. AVM Kapoor was much disturbed when asked as to what were the details of the causalities or infrastructure damage caused by IAF strike inside Pakistan a day earlier. The IAF’s AVM, to this question, with a slight hesitation, said that he had no knowledge about this as such details were ” still being awaited”. When asked as to which terror infrastructure of Jaish-e-Muhammad was targeted by AIF raider inside Pakistan, AVM Kapoor just suffice by saying that IAF Jets hit the target inside Pakistan and that was it. When he was asked by another journalist to explain the formation and strength of PAF Jets that carried out strikes inside India, AVM Kapoor refused to answer by saying that it was subject to operational connotation and he was not supposed to divulge on it.
It was even worst when the podium was given to Major General Surinder Singh Mahal of Indian Army. General Surrinder admitted that PAF raiders hit four targets and those targets were military targets but the strikes could not cause any damage. When asked as to how was it possible that a fighter jet locks a target and fires a missile and the missile goes somewhere else, without causing any damage to the locked target?, the Indian General replied by saying ” That you have to ask Pakistan army”. When asked that Pakistani Premier and Pakistan’s ISPR were constantly preaching for peace what was Indian army reaction to it? the Indian General sufficed by saying that it was not to the purview of the briefing to answer such questions. When asked that if the across LoC strikes were carried out by IAF on credible intelligence report about the presence of Jaish-e-Muhammad facility there what were the intelligence reports suggesting about the elimination or level of damage to that facility? General skipped the question by saying that intelligence matters cannot be answered.
Out of nowhere, probably just to add more color and spice to the drama, the podium was given to Indian Navy’s Rear Admiral RS Gujral, who had nothing to explain but to say that Indian Navy was fully prepared to give rock solid response to any misadventure by Pakistan Navy.
In the end, when asked by journalists that were the Indians taking the announcement of release of IAF’s arrested pilot by Pakistan as a goodwill gesture, The Indian General blatantly said that they were not taking it as a goodwill gesture but just as a gesture in accordance with Geneva Convention, without realizing that Geneva Convention, at no stage bars the detaining government to release any arrested enemy soldier or officer with in a specific time frame but it says that once the detaining government feels satisfied, it could release the detained enemy soldier/officer.
The global media observers and international defense analysts have termed this so-called Press briefing as a very outrageous attempt by Indians to befool the global community once again and dubbed it as a tri service circus in which Indian Generals appeared before the local media just to confuse them and to give a rather conflicting narrative.
With the state of affairs, took place at the aforesaid Media Briefing, one could easily figure out that the Indian Generals did nothing else by their assertions but simply put India’s official Seal on the statements of Pakistan government and Pakistan Army.