Rajasthan: IAF jets shoot down Pakistani drone which entered India
On Monday, sources told India that an unidentified flying object from the Pakistani side violated the Indian airspace near Bikaner.
A fighter jet of the Indian Air Force on Monday shot down a Pakistani military drone in Bikaner sector of the Indo-Pak border using an air-to-air missile, government sources said. The Pakistani drone was shot down by a Sukhoi-30 aircraft at around 11:30 AM, minutes after a ground-based radar station detected the flying machine, they said.
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It was the second unsuccessful attempt by Pakistan to send a spy drone inside India in the last six days.
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The radar station in the area detected the enemy drone following which one of the fighter jets deployed in the area shot it down, they said. The downing of the jet came in the midst of heightened tension between India and Pakistan after IAF struck a terrorist training camp in Pakistan's Balakot and subsequent retaliation by Islamabad. A Pakistani drone was shot down by India on February 27 along Indo-Pak border in Kutch in Gujarat.
Just before Indian Air Force jets struck the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terror camp in Balakot on February 26, technical surveillance by Indian intelligence agencies had found 300 mobile phones active at the facility, giving a clear indication of the total number of inmates housed there, sources said here on Monday.The National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) had started surveillance of the facility after the Indian Air Force (IAF) was given clearance to target the camp in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the sources said.
On February 26, 12 Mirage 2000 IAF jets penetrated deep inside the Pakistani air space and launched 1,000 kg Spice 2000 bombs at the camp in Balakot, which housed terrorists, including commanders, and an ammunition dump.
“During technical surveillance, it emerged that there was a presence of around 300 mobile phones with active signal strength inside the facility in the days leading up to the strike. The facility was destroyed by the IAF fighters,” added the sources who wished to remain anonymous due to first hand involvement in operational matters.
The sources added that other Indian intelligence agencies had also corroborated NTRO’s assessment of active targets with inputs of similar number of Jaish operatives in the Balkot facility. No official number of terrorists killed in the strike have been announced by the government.
Sidestepping a raging debate on the number of casualties in the Balakot strike, IAF chief B S Dhanoa on Monday said it is for the government to provide details on the terrorists killed and the Air Force only sees if a target has been hit or not.
According to him, had the Indian Air Force dropped bombs in a jungle at Balakot there would have been no need for Pakistan to respond.
Read: Balakot strike: IAF calculates target hits, not casualties
"The target has been clearly amplified by the foreign secretary in his statement. And, of course, if we plan to hit the target, we hit the target. Otherwise, why would he (Pakistan) have responded," he said.
The Air Force doesn't count human casualties, Dhanoa said as the figure of how many terrorists were killed in the February 26 attack on a Jaish-e-Mohammed camp in Balakot in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province remained unclear. Government sources said up to 350 terrorists were killed, BJP president Amit Shah put the toll at 250, some media reports indicated the damage was minimal and opposition leaders clamoured for clarity. But there has been no official statement so far.
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"We don't count human casualties. We count what targets we have hit or not hit," Dhanoa said in his first comments since the events of last week, when escalating India-Pakistan tensions led to aerial combat and Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman being in captivity in Pakistan for almost three days.
Maulana Masood Azhar is alive, confirmed the incumbent Provincial Minister of Punjab for Information and Culture in Pakistan on Monday.
"He is alive, Maulana Masood Azhar is alive, we have no information of his death," Fayyaz ul Hassan Chohan told ANI, without elaborating on Azhar's current state of health.