Moiz Abbas Shah, Pak officer linked to 2019 Abhinandan Varthaman capture, killed in Taliban clash: Report
Pakistani Army officer Moiz Abbas Shah, who played a role in the 2019 capture of Indian Air Force pilot Abhinandan Varthaman, was among two personnel killed during a clash with Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region. In the photo: Pakistani Army officer Moiz Abbas Shah (left). Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman, who was part of the Combat Air Patrol responding to the intrusion, was captured after his jet was shot down over Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in 2019.
According to an India Today report, Pakistan's military confirmed that 11 terrorists were eliminated during an intelligence-based operation (IBO) in South Waziristan district.
However, two security personnel, including Major Shah, also lost their lives in the encounter.
The 2019 India-Pakistan aerial confrontation was triggered by India's airstrike on a terrorist training camp in Balakot, located in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, on February 26—twelve days after the Pulwama attack.
In response, Pakistan deployed around 24 fighter jets to target Indian military installations. This action led to a brief but intense aerial engagement between the two air forces. The dogfight began around 10 am on February 27 and lasted approximately ten minutes, taking place in the skies over Nowshera in Jammu's Rajouri district. It marked the first direct aerial combat between India and Pakistan since the 1971 war.
During the encounter, India shot down a US-made F-16 belonging to the Pakistan Air Force, according to a report by Hindustan Times. An Indian Air Force pilot, Abhinandan Varthaman, part of the Combat Air Patrol tasked with intercepting the incoming aircraft, was captured after his jet was shot down in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Pakistan's strike group, which included 12 jets – among them four F-16s and four Mirage aircraft – entered Indian airspace through the Kalal area of the Nowshera sector. These jets had taken off from Nur Khan and Sargodha air bases. Abhinandan was held captive for about '60 hours'
Abhinandan Varthaman, then 35, made military aviation history during the February 27, 2019 aerial dogfight by shooting down a Pakistani F-16 fighter jet just moments before his own MiG-21 Bison was hit by a missile, forcing him to eject. It was widely regarded as the first recorded instance of a MiG-21 Bison downing an F-16, two jets from different generations. He was captured after landing in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and was held for nearly 60 hours before being released and returned to India on March 1, 2019.
In November 2021, Abhinandan, by then a Group Captain, was awarded the Vir Chakra by President Ram Nath Kovind at a ceremony held at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
The dogfight occurred a day after the Indian Air Force carried out airstrikes on terror camps in Balakot in retaliation for the Pulwama suicide bombing on February 14, 2019, which killed 40 CRPF personnel.
According to his citation, Abhinandan engaged the Pakistani fighter formation despite its 'immense numerical and technological superiority,' and his bold manoeuvres led to 'tactical chaos' among the enemy aircraft.
He became the first IAF officer to receive the Vir Chakra since the 1999 Kargil War, when Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja (posthumously) and Wing Commander AK Sinha were honoured with the same wartime gallantry medal.
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Public health was not about the well-being of families; instead, it was about recklessly ending the dreams of many to have families at all. The Emergency ended the almost instinctive faith that many citizens had in the State as an instrument of good, by making them realise that the State's character could well turn in an instance and become an instrument of darkness. Indian democracy and the political legitimacy of the Centre took a clear hit. And while it is hard to draw any causal linkage, and this is only speculative, it is worth pondering why was it that within a few years of the Emergency that India saw the most serious set of political-internal security crises simultaneously, from Punjab to Assam to Kashmir. It is also worth pondering why over the decades, the instinctive suspicion of the State and political leadership has only increased. Something did break in the 1970s. And there was no greater rupture than the Emergency. The political culture shift The Emergency also shaped Indian political culture, for good and bad. Indira Gandhi's 'high command' culture was already visible before 1975, but the Emergency marked the high point of centralized and authoritarian rule in India. It changed the incentives for those within the Congress. It was no longer enough to have been a freedom fighter or a Gandhian or even a Nehruvian. Unless one was a Indira sycophant, with complete loyalty to one person and her son, Sanjay, the driver of the Emergency, there was no future in the party. The period also showed how authoritarianism could persist without a major public backlash, especially when dissent was chained. Do note that Indira Gandhi called elections not because of external pressure but her own internal voice and assessment. All of these patterns -- of political parties turning to family fiefdoms, of political leaders centralizing all authority, of political authoritarianism going unchecked — would only grow in subsequent decades in different forms, even if the Emergency itself was not imposed again. And the reason no regime has dared impose an Emergency again is because this also marked the golden period of dissent. Thousands went to prisons. New solidarities were formed. New civil liberties organizations took roots. Gutsy journalists found new ways to communicate news of the demise of democracy to readers. A quiet churn happened beneath the calm. And eventually, the 1977 elections saw the defeat of Indira, the first time that the Congress was defeated since the first election in 1951, and the first time India would get to see a non-Congress coalition formation in power. This too showed something fundamental — and fundamentally heartening — about the resilience of Indian democracy. In a society as large, as diverse, as chaotic, citizens would not accept rule by fiat from the Centre, where order was prioritized at the cost of freedom and justice. Alignments and leadership But the most visible impact of the Emergency was in the nature of political alignments itself and the emergence of a new generation of leaders. Resistance to Indira had brought socialists and the Sangh together in the run-up to the Emergency itself. This was not new in itself, for these ideologically diverse formations had formed coalition governments in 1967. Jayaprakash Narayan's towering leadership was the glue as student movements arose in Bihar and Gujarat. But the Emergency created new bonds between those who were at the forefront of the cultural battles for Hindutva and those who were at the forefront of the social justice battles on the caste and class axis. Time spent together in movements and in prisons helped. For now, they had one common adversary: Indira's Congress. And when the elections were called, splinter formations from the Congress led by Morarji Desai, socialist formations led by Raj Narain and George Fernandes and young Turks such as Chandrashekhar, peasant formations led by Charan Singh, and most importantly perhaps, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh led by Nanaji Deshmukh, Atal Bihari Vajpayee and LK Advani, came together to form the Janata Party to pose a unified challenge to the Congress. The last minute exit of the veteran Dalit leader, Jagjivan Ram, from the Congress infused additional energy in the anti-Indira camp. JP was too old and frail to provide effective everyday guidance but was the moral force behind the formation. For the Jana Sangh in particular to give up its own identity was a major decision given its roots in the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, but it also meant getting legitimacy and recognition as a part of the wider opposition and accessing State power. For socialists to accept Jana Sangh colleagues may have been equally difficult, but it also meant access to the RSS's formidable organizational machinery and base that proved to be indispensable. The anti-Emergency struggle and the formation of the Janata revealed something that has persisted in Indian politics. When one force becomes dominant, ideologically disparate formations come together often to oppose it to introduce a balance in the polity. The Janata's surprise win was the biggest electoral surprise in Indian history, leading to Morarji Desai's elevation as the PM. And its biggest achievement was in restoring Indian democracy and constitutionalism. This was a formidable achievement in itself, which is not recognised adequately because of the short-lived nature of the Janata experiment. Internal factionalism and competing ambitions and egos marked the functioning of the party. This was often couched as ideological differences, with a strong push against 'dual membership' of those who had belonged to the Jana Sangh and owed their loyalty to the RSS but also were Janata leaders. Eventually, Indira Gandhi succeeded in playing on these internal rifts, propped up Charan Singh briefly as PM, before pulling the rug and returning to power in the next election. This too has been a recurring phenomena, of coalitions formed against one party unable to sustain positive governance and political programmes and overcome internal squabbles. But in this short period itself, from 1975 to 1977, think of the leaders who emerged. Narendra Modi cut his teeth in anti-Emergency politics. Arun Jaitley was Delhi University Student Union's star president who took on the regime. Lalu Prasad was the young rooted leader from Bihar, as were his friends turned foes, Sushil Modi and Nitish Kumar. Ram Vilas Paswan got elected to the Lok Sabha from Hajipur with a record margin, even as Sharad Yadav came to Parliament from Jabalpur. From DP Tripathi to Subramanian Swamy, leaders from the Left and Right stood up for political liberty and democracy. The fact that these leaders then went on to shape Indian politics in decisive ways and some continue to dominate it is a result of the Emergency. Indira Gandhi, triggered by an adverse judicial verdict and prodded on by her over-ambitious and entitled son, betrayed her party and her father's legacy as she trampled on Indian democracy that fateful night on June 25, 1975. But little would she have known that her midnight proclamation would reshape India's State-citizen relationship, political culture, political alignments and political leadership in such fundamental ways that it continues to define India fifty years later. That is the political legacy of the Emergency.
