The captured Indian pilot who has become the face of one of the gravest military crises to engulf South Asia in two decades is expected to be released from Pakistani custody on Friday.
A man identified as Wing Commander Abhinandan has been held in Pakistan after his MiG-21 jet was downed during a dogfight between Pakistani and Indian warplanes over the ceasefire line in the disputed Kashmir region on Wednesday.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi said at a joint session of parliament that the pilot would be released at the Wagah border crossing on the demarcation line dividing the two countries on Friday afternoon, local time.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan announced that Abhinandan would be released Friday as a “gesture for peace,” offering a potential means of defusing tensions between the two nuclear powers.
Despite the gesture, Indian officials have so far remained guarded, On Thursday, Indian Army Major General Surinder Singh Bahal told a joint news conference that India remains on “high alert” and that it was “fully prepared and in a heightened state of readiness to respond to any provocation by Pakistan.”
He also confirmed that Masood Azhar, leader of the Jaish-e-Mohammed militant group that India said it targeted in its pre-dawn strike in Pakistan territory on Tuesday, is in Pakistan. “He is very unwell,” Quresh said. “He is unwell to the extent that he cannot leave his house, because he is really unwell, so that’s the information I have.”
