New Delhi: As the anxious wait for IAF pilot Abhinandan Varthaman kept on increasing on Friday, little did people back home knew Pakistan was resorting to yet another dirty game to delay his release.
Various reports have cited that in the run-up to his release, Abhinandan was made to record a video, eulogising and praising the Pakistani army and its level of professionalism.
It left no one in doubt that the statement was extracted under duress. Even to an amateur eye, the video appeared heavily edited as one frame overlapped the other in quick succession, given the number of cuts the video went through. Some report counted as many as 32 cuts in the 90-second video.
Wing Commander Abhinandan’s video message before his handing over to India pic.twitter.com/RZzOgEEJR1
— Mansoor Ali Khan (@_Mansoor_Ali) March 1, 2019
“Pakistan army is a professional army. They took good care of me. The soldiers rescued me from the hands of the local youths who were full of josh. The word “josh” in particular stuck attention of the viewers. The manner in which he underpinned the word was seen as attempts to mock at Indians and the Indian establishment as the phrase gained currency following the release of the movie Uri.
“Recording of his video message caused a delay in his handing over,” several media said quoting sources.
“The Pakistani army is very professional and I am impressed by it,” he said while finishing with some comments by attacking the Indian media for being biased and misleading the people.
The statement extracted from Abhinandan flies in the face of the Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan who had said in the parliament that his release was as part of ‘peace gesture’. According to some geopolitical strategic observers, Imran would have risked playing with the fate of the IAF pilot as it faced isolation in the global community, except for the overt support from China, following the Pulwama terror attack.
