This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.

India Was Minutes Away From Bombing Pakistan During Kargil War: Report

After the talks between India and Pakistan failed, The Indian Air Force had drawn up a detailed plan.
Agra, INDIA: Canberra bombers at the Air Force station in Agra, 11 May 2007. The Electric Canberra jet bombers that played an important role in the 1965 and 1971 wars and also acted as a photographic recee mission during the Kargil war. AFP PHOTO/ MANAN VATSYAYANA (Photo credit should read MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/Getty Images)
AFP/Getty Images
Agra, INDIA: Canberra bombers at the Air Force station in Agra, 11 May 2007. The Electric Canberra jet bombers that played an important role in the 1965 and 1971 wars and also acted as a photographic recee mission during the Kargil war. AFP PHOTO/ MANAN VATSYAYANA (Photo credit should read MANAN VATSYAYANA/AFP/Getty Images)

Indian Air Force pilots were very close to bombing targets deep inside Pakistan at the peak of the Kargil War on June 13, 1999, NDTV reported.

After the talks between India and Pakistan failed, Indian Air Force drew a detailed plan with assigned targets, final route maps were chalked out, arms were allotted to pilots along with Pakistani currency in order to help them escape if they got stranded on the other side of the border, reveals official documents of Indian Air Force accessed by NDTV.

This move, the report says, would have resulted in a full-fledged war.

In 1999, talks between Jaswant Singh, then Foreign Minister, and Pakistan's foreign minister, Sartaj Aziz failed to take off.

Aziz had been given clear terms, to withdraw Pakistani intruders from the Kargil mountains, abandon the demand for redrawing the Line of Control border in Kashmir and urgently restore the status-quo by accepting the Line of Control as it had been defined for decades. The terms also included demand for punishment to those who had tortured six Indian soldiers, the NDTV report said.

Sensing that the talks were not leading to any breakthrough, the government prepared for the attack.

Read the full story and the transcript of the report here.

Close
This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.