How India Called Out Pakistan’s Nuke Bluff? Inside Story Revealed

New Delhi: Former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, Ajay Bisaria, who was in Islamabad during the 2019 Balakot airstrike, has revealed the inside story of what went on diplomatically and behind closed doors following the Pulwama terror attack in J&K that brought Pakistan on its knees. He gave an insight of how the PM Modi-led govt through its coercive diplomacy, successfully managed to retrieve IAF’s Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman in 60 hours from Pakistan.

In an interview with Republic TV's Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami, Ajay Bisaria clearly said that India's stand, during the Balakot air strike, was very clear that the pilot should be returned in any condition.

India's stand was very clear during Balakot airstrike, says Former Indian Envoy Bisaria

He asserted, “Pakistan PM Imran Khan would have called up PM Modi to negotiate and talk about the timeline to release Abhinandan Varthaman. But the call didn't happen. Our stand was very clear. Indian policy makers were very clear on their stand, that there was nothing to talk and nothing to negotiate.”

The former Indian envoy also revealed layer by layer the truth behind Pakistan threatening India of nuclear attack, when he was asked if the situation would have escalated to Nuclear war between the two countries.

Bisaria said, “I can’t comment on what India was willing to, because I don’t have an account of that. But, we have an account about Pakistan. Pakistan themselves were telling foreign diplomats that they have credible evidence that India was about to launch nine missiles.”

Calling Pakistan’s threat of nuclear war as bluff, he explained why nuclear attack was not applicable at that point of time for Pakistan. He said, “I think that it (nuclear war) was not an issue of discussion at that point of time. If you see the dynamics of strategic escalation, what Pakistan had done in Pulwama was in sub-conventional space, what India had responded to in preemptive strikes on terrorists targets also was in the sub-conventional space.”

“So, there was no escalation in the conventional space of a war like Kargil or 1965 war. So, the question of going into a nuclear space of escalation, didn’t arise. That was a bluff, or nuclear saber rattling that Pakistan had used. Two days ago, they said that the nuclear command authority had met, but that certainly didn’t fool anyone in India.”