Srinagar: Not a day passes without some Pakistani leader or the other shedding tears for the people of Kashmir. Yet, none of them seemed to have batted an eyelid when their country launched missiles and rockets at the Indian union territory during Operation Sindoor.
Most of these projectiles missed their intended targets, posing a major threat to life and property of civilians.
Indian security agencies have now confirmed that the object that splashed into Srinagar’s Dal Lake on May 10 was a part of a Pakistani rocket. The pieces were fished out from the lake on Sunday during a cleanliness drive.
The pieces were parts of a Fatah-1 guided artillery rocket, security agencies have confirmed. This rocket system, developed by Pakistan and test-fired for the first time in 2021 has a strike range of 140 km with conventional warheads.
Indian authorities said the rocket had missed its intended target, a military facility in Srinagar, and plunged into the lake, a major tourist hotspot.
Eyewitnesses had told the police that the projectile exploded and sent plumes of smoke over the water. Security forces had retrieved some fragments then. The shell recovered on Sunday was handed over to the police.
Similar fragments were found in May in Haryana’s Sirsa, Rajasthan’s Barmer and Jalandhar in Punjab, clearly indicating that Pakistan had targeted Indian villagers and farmers.
There is also evidence that Pakistan fired its Fatah-II surface-to-surface missile at a strategic Indian site, but it was intercepted by air defence units in Haryana’s Sirsa.