The Pakistani army in a desperate step on Sunday flew international and local media to the Line of Control (LoC) to ‘prove’ India didn’t conduct any surgical strikes across it in Pakistan. In fact, French news agency Agence France Presse (AFP) called the ferrying of journalists by air “a rare step” by Pakistan.
“The army took the rare step of flying international media to the de facto border to make its case in a battle of competing narratives,” AFP wrote.
According to Pakistani newspaper Dawn and The News International, this was done to show to the world that the “claims of surgical strike by India is a white lie,” said Lieutenant General Asim Bajwa, a spokesman for the Pakistani army.
The group of 40 journalists flown by the Army to a forward command post on the LoC represented about 20 media organizations and this shows the denial of Pakistani army over Thursday morning’s strikes carried out by India in PoK.
As per the statement by Pakistan army, there were no such strikes and two of its soldiers were killed in ”routine” cross-border fire on the intervening night of September 28-29, when India successfully struck terrorist camps taking out at least 38 terrorists across the LoC in Pakistan.
“No such incident has taken place nor any such will be allowed to happen in future and if the adversary attempted so, it will be responded to with an ever strongest force,” Bajwa said.
