New Delhi: Pakistan Army’s official spokesperson Asif Ghafoor backtracked Sunday after initially tweeting a four-year-old video in an attempt to discredit the Indian Air Force’s capabilities.
Ghafoor initially shared a video of the Indian Air Force veteran, Air Marshal Denzil Keelor (retd), claiming that he was admitting to India’s failures on 27 February.
Pakistan had captured Wing Commander Abhinandan Vardhaman on 27 February, a day after India had carried out air strikes at Balakot.
“Admission of Indian failure and losses on 27 February 2019 by a well decorated Indian Airforce veteran Air Marshal Denzil Keelor. #surprise,” Ghafoor had tweeted.
Admission of Indian failure and losses on 27 February 2019 by a well decorated Indian Airforce veteran Air Marshal Denzil Keelor.#Surprise pic.twitter.com/uTeErbucCl
— Asif Ghafoor (@peaceforchange) July 28, 2019
Only, Air Marshal Keelor is talking about the tactical lapses and inexperience that led to losses in the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war. The original video is itself four years old and was posted on YouTube on 9 August, 2015. Posted by WildFilms India, the clip is titled “Nehru lost India the war: Air Marshal Denzil Keelor speaks about India’s battle losses”.
A couple of hours later, Ghafoor backtracked and conceded that the video had been doctored.
The clip of Air Marshal is revealed to be doctored through inset. Admission and expression were too identical to differentiate. Unintentional omission is acknowledged, especially to Indians.
Nonetheless, environment remained unchanged for IAF on both the occasions.
— Asif Ghafoor (@peaceforchange) July 28, 2019
He has, however, not deleted his original tweet that has so far received 3.4k retweets and more than 9k likes.
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The doctored clip
The clip shared by Ghafoor was doctored with an inset of the post-Balakot footage and shows a crashed Indian aircraft with the Indian Air Force roundel and Pakistani villagers and service personnel making videos. It is interspersed with the interrogation video of Wg Cdr Abhinandan, giving a sense that Air Marshal Keelor is talking about reasons for India’s loss during the air battle.
In the said clip, Keelor is heard saying, “During the war you win and you lose. Some of the losses were not right… they were due to tactical errors, due to inexperience and with inexperience you cannot go to war.
“We had trained people there and people who went for training had to come in and join us, so we had a group of people who are trained and a group of people who are not trained but the price that we had to pay for it was heavy.”
He then goes on talk about Pakistan’s strengths in terms of airspace surveillance. “Pakistan had a radar system, interception system with ability to detect, identify, intercept and destroy, we did not have it,” he says. “They had a great advantage and we did not have it. These are great factors that affected the outcome of the war.”
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Hahahhaha what next ? Pakistan sent the first man to the moon ? In 1971 the Pakistanis lied to their countrymen about the existence of Bangladesh for almost a week . What more can you expect from these Pakis ? . As for Ghaffora thanks for uploading a fake video makes our job easier #PKMKB Kayam rahey .
There is one thing we should not forget: The asymmetry remained true in 2019 as it was in 1965. They had better aircraft. I don’t know about radar. We spend much than them (7 times?). They should’ve lost 7 aircraft, we none. We need to be more paranoid.
We flew into pak territory outside PoK, bombed Jaish camp and came back. Paks tried to retaliate and were unsuccessful since we chased them out.
Paks always lie through the teeth and always claim victory in every war. If we didn’t have videos and photos, pakis would have said they never surrendered in Dhaka! We kicked them out in Kargil but they claim Nawaz made them vacate.
We spend A LOT less percentage GDP wise on defense and also what we spend we earn whereas Paks beg around and or play rental state (with disastrous consequences) and get free stuff.
The economic trajectories will continue to diverge in India’s favor in the coming years. Already Paks are up to their eye balls to sustain the defense expenditures since they are sinking.
There is very tough competition everywhere in India. So still lot of room for meritocracy.
Whereas mediocrity rules in Pakishaitan:-)
Look at what caliber they could get to be spokesperson for the Army and their UN ambassador. Quoting fake photos and fake videos.
Pakishaitan – good one