In a gesture of peace, Pakistan has returned a captured Indian pilot to his home country. Tensions between India and Pakistan have escalated since a suicide car bombing carried out by Pakistan-based militants in Kashmir.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/P. Gill
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Pakistan on Friday released a captured Indian fighter pilot in a move many hope will ease tensions between the two countries.
Thousands of Indians, some waving flags and singing, had gathered at the Wagah border crossing near the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore before the pilot crossed into India shortly before 9 p.m. local time (1600 UTC).
Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was captured on Wednesday. The Pakistani military said it shot down his and another Indian fighter plane after they crossed the Kashmir boundary known as the Line of Control and intruded into Pakistani airspace for a second time this week.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan had on Thursday called the decision to release the pilot a "peace gesture." But border security remained high with tens of thousands of Indian and Pakistani soldiers facing each other along the Line of Control as the handover took place.
The decision to release the pilot came after countries including the United States and China, as well as the European Union, urged India and Pakistan to de-escalate the conflict.
Pakistan has shown 'maturity'
Ahead of Varthaman's release, India's ambassador to Germany, Mukta Dutta Tomar, told DW she welcomed Pakistan's decision.
"We are happy that Pakistan has shown the maturity to take the step to announce the release of Wing Commander Abhinandan and his return to India," she said.
Indian ambassador speaks to DW
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"We had objected very strongly to the vulgar display that Pakistan had done of an injured personnel of the Indian Air Force which is not in accordance with international humanitarian law and the Geneva conventions," she added.
Tensions escalate
Indian fighter jets entered Pakistani airspace on Tuesday and attacked an alleged terrorist training camp. It was the first Indian intrusion of Pakistani territory since 1971.
India claimed it killed a large number of militants from the Jaish-e-Mohammed group, which had claimed responsibility for a deadly suicide car bombing in India's Kashmir region on February 14 that killed at least 40 Indian troops.
Ambassador Tomar said India's strike was justified after Pakistan "refused" to capture those responsible for the car bombing.
"The only option left to us was to attack the camp," she said. "It was non-military. It was not an attack on Pakistan. We attacked no military installations. It was a counter-terrorism operation in a very remote part of Pakistan where there was no civilian population."
KC Singh, a senior Indian diplomat and former ambassador, told DW Delhi correspondent Sonia Phalnika that the latest events between India and Pakistan showed a change in strategy.
"Since 1999, definitely 2001, there was a whole cycle of violence and talks, but you always had a red line, and it was taboo to cross that red line because there was the question of escalating to the nuclear level," Singh said. "I think what has been done now is India's called Pakistan's nuclear bluff."
Singh said Khan's offer of peace talks was "not going to work" at this stage, because India's government takes the position that "talks and terror cannot continue at the same time."
Singh said that, for India, this meant the dismantling of the terror network in Pakistan. He said there was also a difference between a normal dialogue where prime ministers speak to each other and the comprehensive dialogue that the two countries started in the 1990s.
India-Pakistan rivalry: Kashmiris pay a high price
India and Pakistan continue to clash over Kashmir, a volatile Himalayan region that has been experiencing an armed insurgency for nearly three decades. Many Kashmiris are now fed up with both Islamabad and New Delhi.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/T. Mustafa
An unprecedented danger?
On February 27, Pakistan's military said that it had shot down two Indian fighter jets over disputed Kashmir. A Pakistani military spokesman said the jets were shot down after they'd entered Pakistani airspace. It is the first time in history that two nuclear-armed powers have conducted air strikes against each other.
Image: Reuters/D. Ismail
India drops bombs inside Pakistan
The Pakistani military has released this image to show that Indian warplanes struck inside Pakistani territory for the first time since the countries went to war in 1971. India said the air strike was in response to a recent suicide attack on Indian troops based in Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan said there were no casualties and that its airforce repelled India's aircraft.
Image: AFP/ISPR
No military solution
Some Indian civil society members believe New Delhi cannot exonerate itself from responsibility by accusing Islamabad of creating unrest in the Kashmir valley. A number of rights organizations demand that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government reduce the number of troops in Kashmir and let the people decide their fate.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/T. Mustafa
No end to the violence
On February 14, at least 41 Indian paramilitary police were killed in a suicide bombing near the capital of India-administered Kashmir. The Pakistan-based Jihadi group, Jaish-e-Mohammad, claimed responsibility. The attack, the worst on Indian troops since the insurgency in Kashmir began in 1989, spiked tensions and triggered fears of an armed confrontation between the two nuclear-armed powers.
Image: IANS
A bitter conflict
Since 1989, Muslim insurgents have been fighting Indian forces in the Indian-administered part of Kashmir - a region of 12 million people, about 70 percent of whom are Muslim. India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars since independence in 1947 over Kashmir, which they both claim in full but rule in part.
India strikes down a militant rebellion
In October 2016, the Indian military has launched an offensive against armed rebels in Kashmir, surrounding at least 20 villages in Shopian district. New Delhi accused Islamabad of backing the militants, who cross over the Pakistani-Indian "Line of Control" and launch attacks on India's paramilitary forces.
Image: picture alliance/AP Photo/C. Anand
Death of a Kashmiri separatist
The security situation in the Indian part of Kashmir deteriorated after the killing of Burhan Wani, a young separatist leader, in July 2016. Protests against Indian rule and clashes between separatists and soldiers have claimed hundreds of lives since then.
Image: Reuters/D. Ismail
The Uri attack
In September 2016, Islamist militants killed at least 17 Indian soldiers and wounded 30 in India-administered Kashmir. The Indian army said the rebels had infiltrated the Indian part of Kashmir from Pakistan, with initial investigations suggesting that the militants belonged to the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad group, which has been active in Kashmir for over a decade.
Image: UNI
Rights violations
Indian authorities banned a number of social media websites in Kashmir after video clips showing troops committing grave human rights violations went viral on the Internet. One such video that showed a Kashmiri protester tied to an Indian army jeep — apparently as a human shield — generated outrage on social media.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/
Demilitarization of Kashmir
Those in favor of an independent Kashmir want Pakistan and India to step aside and let the Kashmiri people decide their future. "It is time India and Pakistan announce the timetable for withdrawal of their forces from the portions they control and hold an internationally supervised referendum," Toqeer Gilani, the president of the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front in Pakistani Kashmir, told DW.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/J. Singh
No chance for secession
But most Kashmir observers don't see it happening in the near future. They say that while the Indian strategy to deal strictly with militants and separatists in Kashmir has partly worked out, sooner or later New Delhi will have to find a political solution to the crisis. Secession, they say, does not stand a chance.
Image: Getty Images/AFP/T. Mustafa
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Pakistan minister boycotts Islamic council meeting
Following heightened tensions between the two countries, Pakistan's foreign minister on Friday said he would not attend a meeting of foreign ministers from the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in Abu Dhabi this weekend, because his Indian counterpart had been invited to the event.
Shah Mahmood Qureshi told parliament that lower-ranking officials would instead attend to represent Pakistan's interests.
