“Truth is the first casualty in war.”
It was the month of February in 2019. The sky over India Pakistan border at Lam Valley in Nowshera sector of J&K was roaring with the thunderous sounds of fighter jets which included SU30MkI , Mirage 2000, MiG21-Bisons all with tricolored tails and JF17 Thunders and F-16 Fighting Falcons with PAF written over them.
Operation Swift Retort was in full swing.This was a mission undertaken by Pakistani Air Force to avenge Balakot Airstrikes.
Armed with technologically better fighter planes, Beyond Visual Range air-to-air missiles (AMRAAMs) and backed by SAAB airborne warning systems, the PAF managed to violate Indian airspace.
IAF responded by scrambling above mentioned fighters to greet the infiltrators.
World then witnessed the biggest Dogfight of the 21st centaury yet.
A Paki F16 (Identity undisclosed) was shot down by the MiG21-Bison flown by WG. Cdr. Abhinandan.
Pakistan Proposed Outcomes:
Two of the Indian jets which included one MiG21-Bison and one Su30MKI were shot down by WG Cdr. Muhammad Nouman Ali and Sq.Ldr. Hassan Mahmood Siddiqui, both were flying F16s.
A lie was staged
More than 20000 twitter bot accounts, Pak media worked on the behalf of Pak army to propagate the lie that PAF,other than MiG21 Bison, also shot down a SU30MkI.
Videos were released and eye witness were brought in front who told that 2 pilots had ejected from two separate aircrafts.
As per well established facts now one of these pilots was of the Pak F16 that went down. This exact pilot at that time was being labelled by pakistan as the pilot of Su30MkI.
To make their lie stronger, Muhammed Norman Ali and Hassan Mahmood Siddiqui were awarded war time honours in an investiture ceremony on Pakistan Day that year.(See image below)
PAK army even made a memorial for the same incident.(See image below and notice tails of MiG21 bison and Su30MkI placed.)
The lie got busted in 3 ways:
1.Accidently by head of Pakistan army's PR wing
DG ISPR Asif Gafoor made a few tweet on the mission day. One of his tweet revealed the reality.
(See image below)
2. IAF used the supposedly downed SU30MKI later in an air show. It had a call sign of Avenger 1 prior to that day and later it was conferred a title of AMRAAM dodger for successfully dodging F16’s missile.
(See image below)
3. By retired air commodore of PAF Kaiser Tufail.(In the image below: Air Commodore Kaiser Tufail (retd.) with others )
Tufail in his blog,written two years after the clash, narrated the incident as shown below.
As is evident from his blog that the pair of Su30MkI narrowly survived (dodged) the AMRAAMs. None was shot down.
So this was one of the biggest Pakistani lie of recent times that got busted.
Click for Another interesting read: R&AW Mission Files. OPERATION FIJI
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