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Pakistan Says It Downed Indian Spy Plane, India Investigates
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Indian
army soldiers keep watch from a post near the India-Pakistan
border
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NEW
DELHI
, June 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) -
Pakistan
claimed Saturday to have shot down an unmanned Indian spy plane, news
agencies reported.
The
Indian plane was "on a mission of reconnaissance and
espionage" and was shot down late Friday close to the eastern
town of
Lahore
, a Pakistan Air force statement said, reported Agence France-Presse
(AFP).
"The
Indian aerial vehicle was on a reconnaissance and spying mission when
it violated the
Pakistan
air space close to
Lahore
," the statement added.
Air
force jets were immediately scrambled and shot the plane down at
11:00pm
(1700 GMT) Friday after the air space violation was detected, it said,
adding that the wreckage fell close to the town of
Raja Jang
south of
Lahore
.
Newspaper
reports quoted eyewitnesses as saying that the drone, engulfed in
flames, fell into sugarcane fields outside Raja Jang.
As
smoke billowed from the wreckage, army personnel cordoned off the area
and barred entry to journalists and curious villagers who saw the
plane shot down.
"The
plane was short-sized like a helicopter and was engulfed with flames
when it came down to the fields," a local policeman told The News
daily newspaper.
Lahore
, a city of seven million inhabitants, is located some 30 kilometers
(18 miles) from the Indian border.
Pakistan
's military spokesman, General Rashid Qureshi, lashed out at
India
, saying its air space incursion showed it had no interest in defusing
the brewing conflict.
"Despite
Pakistan
's best efforts to de-escalate,
India
, in complete disregard to international norms, continues ceasefire
violations by firing across the Line of Control and the Working
Boundary, causing civilian casualties."
"
India
has also violated Pakistani airspace, the proof of which has been the
intrusion into Pakistani airspace by an Indian unmanned spy
plane," he told the official news agency APP.
Qureshi
said
Pakistan
had repeatedly said it did not want the current tensions to increase,
"but if Indian aggression is launched,
Pakistan
will defend itself."
"
Pakistan
's determination to defend every inch of its land and airspace has
been proved by the downing of
India
's spy plane," he said, adding that he hoped
India
had "learned its lesson" over the incident.
"The
humiliation that
India
must have suffered in losing its aircraft should convey to the Indian
leadership that Pakistani Armed Forces have the capability of
countering any sort of aggression that
India
may launch."
Meanwhile,
India
's defense ministry said Saturday it was investigating the Pakistani
claim.
"We
are still gathering information about this report," a defense
ministry spokesman told AFP.
"At
the moment, we are not in a position to either confirm or deny the
Pakistani claim," he said.
The
incident came hours after U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard
Armitage told reporters in
New Delhi
that he believed
India
and
Pakistan
want to avoid war with each other and that tensions are "a bit
down" in
South Asia
.
For
his part, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf described the threat of
war with
India
as "minimal" but called for flexibility to break the
deadlock over
Kashmir
, according to Malaysian newspaper, New Straits Times.
"I
think the chance of war is minimal. I think leaders in both countries
need to be sensible enough to work on the path of peace," the
paper quoted him Saturday.
"Nobody,
no leader in
Pakistan
can put the
Kashmir
dispute on the sidelines. Every individual of
Pakistan
is concerned about
Kashmir
. We seek justice on
Kashmir
," the general said.
"We
are not demanding anything unjust and the world must understand. But
the only way we can solve this problem is through flexibility from
stated positions on both sides."
The
Himalayan
territory
of
Kashmir
, divided between
India
and
Pakistan
and claimed by both, already sparked two of the rivals' three wars and
is once again the focus of tension between the nuclear-armed
countries.
India
demanded a crackdown following several attacks mounted by what it says
are Pakistan-based militants in
Kashmir
and elsewhere in its territory.
On
Saturday, Indian and Pakistani soldiers engaged in fierce artillery
and mortar fire across the Kashmiri borders, wounding a woman, Indian
police said.
"In
Nowshera sector mortar and artillery shelling was on until late night.
One woman was injured in the attack," a police spokesman said.
But he added: "The Poonch region was comparatively silent."
Nowshera
and Poonch, situated west of
Kashmir
's winter capital
Jammu
, lie on the Line of Control - the de facto border that divides
Kashmir
into Indian- and Pakistani-administered zones.
Poonch
has been one of the flashpoints in a three-week-long stand-off between
India
and
Pakistan
, sparked by a massacre in southern
Kashmir
on May 14 that
New Delhi
blames on
Islamabad
.
Five
Indian villagers were killed and 13 others seriously wounded on Friday
when Pakistani soldiers unleashed a barrage of artillery shells at
Poonch.
The
Indian police spokesman said shelling was continuing along the
international border in Samba, Kathua and Hiranagar, south of
Jammu
.
According
to the police, 34 Indians have so far been killed in the artillery
duels.
Police and officials say about 130,000 villagers living near the
borders have fled to safer neighboring districts to escape the daily
artillery battles.
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