Indian radars detected a package of four Pakistani F-16s and an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle flying close to the India-Pakistan international border near Punjab’s Khemkaran sector, ANI has reported.
As a direct consequence, Indian Air Force (IAF) scrambled its Sukhoi Su-30MKI and Mirage 2000 jets which resulted in the Pakistani jets retreating into their territory.
As per an India Today report, it is still unclear whether the Pakistani jets were trying to intrude into Indian territory, but their objective could have been to detect Indian troop movement near the border as they were accompanied by a drone.
This development comes a month after the IAF conducted air strikes in Pakistan’s Balakot thereby reportedly eliminating around 200 to 300 terrorists. This led to a dogfight between Indian and Pakistani jets a day later which resulted in a Pakistani F-16 being shot down and India losing a MiG-21 Bison.