WAGAH, India: A pilot shot down in a dogfight with Pakistani aircraft returned to India on Friday, after being freed in what Islamabad called a “peace...
People dance and wave the national flag as they wait for the return of Indian pilot Indian Air Force Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman at the India-Pakistan Wagah border on March 1, 2019. — AFP
Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, downed on Wednesday over Kashmir – divided between the nuclear-armed rivals since 1947 – crossed into India at the famed Wagah border checkpoint late Friday, sporting a black eye from his ordeal. The parents of handlebar-moustached Abhinandan were given a standing ovation by fellow passengers as they boarded a flight to Amritsar near Wagah to welcome their son.
They included three members of the same family – a mother and two children – when a mortar shell pulverised their house in Poonch district late Friday, police said. India’s junior foreign minister and former army chief, Vijay Kumar Singh, tweeted that the “welcome” release of the pilot was “the first of many steps that #Pakistan must take to reinforce their commitment to peace”.Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the end of British colonial rule. Both claim it in full and have fought two wars over the Himalayan territory.
“Poor people are getting killed and their homes are destroyed ... We need peace,“ Nagina Bano, one of 300 locals who attended the funeral on Friday for a woman killed in the cross-border bombardment, toldAlarming the international community, tensions escalated after the Feb 14 suicide bombing in Indian Kashmir, with the attack claimed by a Pakistan-based militant group.
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