Islamabad: Residents of Pakistan’s Jamshoro in Sindh province on Thursday noticed an unidentified flying object fall from the sky with a contrail, news agency ANI reported. The report citing Pakistan-based news outlets said that it resembled a rocket or a missile.
Further citing reports from Pakistan-based defence analysts, news agencies and social media the object is speculated to be a missile that was test-fired by Pakistan from the Sindh testing range. The test was scheduled around an hour before midday but it was further delayed owing to a Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL) anomaly. The missile test apparently failed as it was seen descending from its desired trajectory and crashed in an area named Thana Bula Khan in Sindh province.
The ANI report pointed out that only a handful of Pakistani media outlets covered the incident and the defence establishment of the country was tight-lipped. Pakistan’s social media however speculated claims of a Mortar Tracer Round being fired from a nearby range. They said that a mortar with a range of more than 5 kilometres will not lead to a projectile rising that high.
Citing a report from Pakistan-based ARY news, there were reports that a plane or rocket fell down and police were investigating the issue. Conflict News Pakistan took a jibe and said that a purported response to India’s mistakenly fired missile may have prompted Pakistan to fire its own missile only to see it land on its own soil.
Later another Twitter account that tweets on defence issues related to Pakistan said that testing was ongoing at the range. “
A Pakistani defence analyst account called AEROSINT Division PSF posted from its Twitter handle, “Aliabad, Jamshoro, Sindh. With regards to the video being published on social media, its own forces testing range near the vicinity of this town is active. No reason to create panic,” it tweeted. It further said that a no-fly zone in the test areas was already issued.
