Bringing out the disagreement between the Pak Army and Air Force on the operations, Tufail writes that many senior PAF officers tried to explain to the Army that Indian air strikes would wipe out bunkers occupied by ground forces but these were dismissed by the Army after Lt General Ahmad said “troops were well camouflaged and concealed and that IAF pilots would not be able to pick out the posts from the air”.

“Perhaps it was the incredulousness of the whole thing that led Air Commodore Abid Rao (Assistant Chief of Air Staff Operations) to famously quip, ‘After this operation, it’s going the be either a Court Martial or Martial Law’ as we walked out of the briefing room.”

And for the first time, giving details of IAF success in bombing Pakistani positions during the war, Tufail writes that round the clock air attacks had made retention of posts by Pakistani infiltrators “untenable”.

“The Mirage 2000s scored at least five successful laser guided bomb hits on forward dumping sites and posts. During the last days of operations which ended on 12 July, it was clear that delivery accuracy had improved considerably,” he writes.

Contrary to the Indian view that he was shot down, Tufail claims that Flt Lt Nachiketa’s MiG-27 went down due to engine trouble “caused by gas ingestion during high altitude strafing.” He writes: “Flt Lt Nachiketa, who ejected and was apprehended, had a tete-a-tete with this writer during an interesting ‘interrogation’ session.”

... contd.