Air-Water War: Pakistan ‘Wards off Indian Submarine’, India Shoots Down Pakistani Drone

By Staff, Agencies

Amid heightened tensions between New Delhi and Islamabad, Pakistan announced thwarting an attempt by an Indian submarine to enter its waters.

A Pakistani Navy statement read on Tuesday that the navy “used its specialized skills to ward off the submarine, successfully keeping it from entering Pakistani waters” on Monday night.

“This great feat is a testament of the Pakistan Navy’s superior skills. The Navy will keep defending Pakistan’s naval border. The force has the capability to respond to any aggression,” it said.

However, the Navy said its forces did not target the submarine due to a government policy of maintaining peace with New Delhi.

For its part, the Indian media said the country’s Air Force has shot down a Pakistani drone that had strayed across the common border, stoking fears that bilateral tensions could soar again after a recent high point.

The incident came on Monday, when an Indian Sukhoi-30 warplane downed the unmanned vehicle near the city of Bikaner in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan, the reports said, citing unnamed sources.

The Press Trust of India [PTI] news agency said the Air Force had also shot down another intruding Pakistani drone late last month.

On February 14, Indian paramilitary forces on the India-controlled side of Kashmir were hit by a deadly bomb attack orchestrated by Pakistan-based militants.

Tensions between the historical archrivals reached a peak later, when India said it had conducted “preemptive” airstrikes against what it described was a militant training camp in the town of Balakot in western Pakistan.

The countries’ Air Forces then engaged in a dogfight that brought down an Indian warplane.