New Delhi: After the terrorist attack on the CRPF Convoy in Pulwama, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India called a meeting of the Security Cabinet Committee the very next day. The Indian Intelligence Agency RAW (RAW) gave precise input of the terrorist targets and then on 26 February, the Indian Air Force entered Balakot and completed all the Jaish-e-Mohammed bases. Kind of ruined.
This is how the Air Force got a responsibility
The most important thing was Intel from RAW. RAW extracted accurate information about terrorist targets. He had very clean and good pictures of those spots. The responsibility of this mission was entrusted to the Air Force because the target spot was 50 km from the LoC. Now it was the turn to select a jet for which the Mirage was chosen. The geographical location of Balakot was the most important reason for the selection of the mirage.
Fixed date and codeword
March 26 was chosen because all foreign guests were to return to the army after the Arrow India air show. Then Indian Air Force Chief RKS Bhadauria gave the codeword named ‘Bandar’ to this mission.
Miraj leaves from Gwalior
By no means did the enemy get a sense of the mission, so the Mirage planes were flown from Gwalior. Later, through Bareilly, Mirage entered Pakistan via Srinagar.
Target NestNabud in 90 seconds
The air force team flew at 2 pm on the night of the attack ie 26 February. Moving towards their destination, IAF pilots were seen patrolling a Pak Air Force reconnaissance aircraft in the sky of Rawalpindi. To divert him from there, the IAF sent two Sukhoi-30s and four Jaguar aircraft towards Bahawalpur.
The first airstrike occurred at 3.28 pm and the mission was completed by 4 pm. All the Air Force fighter aircraft returned safely to their land and landed at two Western Command bases. All this was done in just 90 seconds. With this, this operation monkey managed to completely destroy all its targets.
