Pak to release IAF pilot after India rules out deal

Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman is likely to return to India on Friday as Pakistan has decided to set free the Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot from its custody.

Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday announced in the country’s Parliament that his government had decided to release the IAF pilot as a “peace gesture” to India. Khan made the announcement in Islamabad shortly after New Delhi made it clear that it would not negotiate with Islamabad for the release of Wing Commander Varthaman, but insisted that he must be returned unharmed immediately.

Islamabad also said on Thursday that it was studying the dossier New Delhi sent to it with details of Jaish-e-Mohammad’s complicity in the February 14 killing of over 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel at Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir as well as the presence of the terror organisation’s camps and leaders in Pakistan. “We will evaluate the dossier with an open heart,” Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said.

Pakistan’s decision to release the IAF pilot and send him back to India, as well as its promise to assess the dossier on JeM’s role on the February 14 suicide bombing in Jammu and Kashmir came on a day the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and China — all permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — as well as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates stepped up diplomatic efforts to defuse the tension between the two South Asian neighbours.

The IAF took note of the Pakistan Prime Minister’s announcement and stated that it looked forward to Varthaman’s return. “We see the gesture of release of Wing Commander as being in consonance with the Geneva Convention (Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva July 27, 1929),” Air Vice Marshal R G K Kapoor of the IAF said in New Delhi on Thursday evening.

Varthaman is currently in custody of the Pakistan Army. He had to eject from his MiG 21 Bison aircraft after it was hit during a dogfight with a Pakistan Air Force (PAF) fighter jet along the Line of Control early on Wednesday. His was among several IAF aircraft, which were tasked with intercepting PAF aircraft that intruded into Indian airspace. He landed in the territory under control of Pakistan and was detained by the Pakistan Army.

India served a démarche to Pakistan on Wednesday demanding the immediate return of Abhinandan, as well as insisting that he should not be harmed.

New Delhi, however, made it clear on Thursday that it would not negotiate or clinch any deal with Islamabad to secure his release. Pakistan Prime Minister’s announcement on the immediate release of Varthaman came soon after New Delhi indicated that it would not allow Islamabad to use the IAF pilot in its custody as a bargaining chip to blackmail it or to change the national narrative in India, where people were very angry after the February 14 killing of over 40 CRPF personnel.

India also took exception to the videos of Varthaman shot and circulated on social media by Pakistan Army personnel and noted that the “vulgar display” of the injured IAF pilot was “in violation of all norms of International Humanitarian Law and the Geneva Convention”.