INDIA/PAKISTAN: INDIAN COMBAT JET SHOOTS DOWN A PAKISTANI MARITIME PATROL AIRCRAFT, PROMPTING A THREAT OF RETALIATION

Record ID: 1373708

  • Title: INDIA/PAKISTAN: INDIAN COMBAT JET SHOOTS DOWN A PAKISTANI MARITIME PATROL AIRCRAFT, PROMPTING A THREAT OF RETALIATION
  • Date: 11th August 1999
  • Summary: JALANDHAR, PUNJAB, INDIA (APRIL 26, 2013) (ORIGINALLY 4: 3) (ANI-NO ACCESS BBC) SISTER OF INDIAN PRISONER LODGED IN PAKISTAN JAIL, SARABJIT SINGH, DALBIR KAUR BEING CONSOLED BY HIS DAUGHTER SWAPANDEEP DALBIR KAUR SOBBING WHILE SPEAKING ON THE MOBILE PHONE DALBIR KAUR WIPING HER TEARS DALBIR KAUR AND SWAPANDEEP CRYING JALANDHAR, PUNJAB, INDIA (ORIGINALLY 4: 3) (FILE) (AN
  • Embargoed: 6th July 2005 19:18
  • Keywords:
  • Location: DELHI, INDIA/ISLAMABAD AND SIRCREEK,PAKISTAN
  • City:
  • Country: Pakistan India
  • Topics: Conflict,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAAPZU0TTUCCU5KMYFTVZ3RUALW
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: An Indian combat jet has shot down a Pakistani maritime patrol aircraft, prompting a threat of retaliation from Islamabad which said all 16 people on board were killed.
    The plane crashed inside Pakistani territory, witnesses who travelled to the scene said.
    The witnesses, who included Reuters photographer Zahid Hussain, said the broken fuselage of the reconnaissance and anti-submarine Berguet Atlantique plane was partly buried in marshland just inside the Pakistani border with India.
    Hussain, who with the other witnesses was taken to the site by helicopter, said that the downed plane's fuselage appeared to have broken up, with parts buried up to slightly more than one metre (four feet) deep in the muddy Indus delta.
    Earlier, Indian defence officials said the reconnaissance and anti-submarine Berguet Atlantique plane strayed into its airspace off the coast of the western state of Gujarat at 11:15 a.m.(0545 GMT).
    It was challenged by two MiG-21 jet fighters, one of which fired a missile when the Atlantique refused to force-land at an Indian airbase, the defence ministry said in a statement.
    But Pakistan said the unarmed plane was shot down well within its territory, and accused India of "cold-blooded murder".
    "This aggression has resulted in the cold-blooded murder of 16 innocent persons, which is reprehensible and deserves strong condemnation by the international community,"
    Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
    "The responsibility for this wanton and cowardly act, as well as its consequences, rests squarely with India," Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz told a news briefing."Pakistan reserves the right to make an appropriate response in self-defence."
    The incident immediately ratcheted up tension again between the nuclear-capable neighbours, which had stood on the brink of a fourth war just a few weeks ago.
    Washington expressed concern over the development.White House National Security Council spokesman David Leavy said Washington was urging both sides to return to the process of normalising relations agreed in the Pakistani city of Lahore last February.
    New Delhi launched a massive air and ground offensive against infiltrators holed up in mountains of Kargil on its side of the bitterly disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir in May.
    The Kargil clash ended last month when the militants retreated behind the line dividing the region between India and Pakistan.
    Since then, there has been a rash of militant attacks in the restive Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir state and a spate of guerrilla attacks in the northeast Indian state of Assam.
    Pakistan denies Indian charges that it arms, trains and sends militants into Jammu and Kashmir to foment a decade-old separatist insurgency in the state.India also charges that Pakistani intelligence has close links with separatist rebels in Assam.
    Artillery firing has also persisted along the Line of Control, which was drawn in 1972 after the last Indo-Pakistani war.
    On Tuesday, India said its troops had destroyed an ammunition dump on the Pakistani side, a claim Pakistani army officials immediately denied.
    Aziz said Pakistan would write to the U.N.Security Council, its five permanent members, members of the Group of Eight nations, the European Union and Japan to take notice of "unprovoked act of military aggression against an unarmed aircraft".
    He said the naval plane was within Pakistani territory monitoring the 12-mile (19-km) Exclusive Economic Zone along the coastlines when it was hit.
    But India said it had no option but to shoot the plane down.
    "It came deep inside our area before noon.In spite of an early warning, when it did not show any indication of withdrawal or going back, we had no option but to shoot it," a defence ministry spokesman told Reuters.
    India said the plane flew some 10 km (six miles) inside Indian territory in Kori Creek, a marshy area which opens out to the Arabian Sea.It distributed a map which pinpointed the crash site two km (1.25 miles) on the Indian side of the maritime border.
    Defence Minister George Fernandes told a news briefing that the navy and the South Western Air Command had been put on a state of alert, and the Directors General of Military Operations of both sides had spoken to each other on a hotline.
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