New Delhi: Even amid the global turmoil over the Russian military invasion in Ukraine and the urgency of bringing back stranded Indians, there was no respite for the mistrust between south Asian neighbours India and Pakistan, with the deep chasm refusing to be buried even if temporarily.
On Tuesday night even as frenzied deliberations took place in the highest levels of the government at South Block on whether to ask Pakistan’s permission for the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) C-17 ‘Globemaster’ transport aircraft to fly over Pakistan as part of Operation Ganga for the airlift missions from Ukraine, a considered decision was finally taken that Pakistani air space would be altogether avoided.
“The shortest flight route to Ukraine from India would be over Pakistan. It would have shortened the travelling time by about 20 minutes or so, but even then it was thought prudent to take a detour and skirt around Pakistan,” a top IAF official told ETV Bharat on condition of anonymity. “Also we do not know what Pakistan may seek in return for allowing us to use their air space.” It takes about 8 hours for a plane to fly from India to Ukraine.
Operation Ganga is the name given to the massive evacuation effort of the about 20,000 Indian nationals from Ukraine, many of whom have since been brought back safely. The decision applied only to IAF’s planes and not the civilian aircraft of Air India that were also being used to bring back the stranded. In the morning, three C-17s took off enroute to Ukraine to fetch Indians stranded in the war-torn country with each aircraft able to carry about 200 passengers largely comprising students.
Four Indian ministers—oil minister Hardeep Singh Puri, law minister Kiren Rijiju, civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia and junior minister Gen VK Singh—are spearheading efforts from their mandated zones in Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Poland-Moldova respectively.
Burdened by a troubled legacy of the past, India accuses Pakistan of fomenting terrorism in Kashmir, a charge Pakistan denies. But proof abounds of the Pakistani hand in the insurgency-plagued valley. The latest headache is the fallout of the Afghanistan crisis which resulted in the fundamentalist Taliban wresting power in Kabul with the Indian security establishment deeply concerned over the strong possibility of militants crossing over to India from Pakistan with the Pakistani establishment’s overt and covert support.
A top security official dealing with the issue of a possible spillover of militancy from Afghanistan to Pakistan and then to India, told ETV Bharat: “The impact of any such spillover will be known in summer which is the time that militants infiltrate India’s Kashmir from Pakistan as heavy snow covers the infiltration routes including the high passes during winter”.
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