Pakistan hands over captured pilot Abhinandan Varthaman to India

A pilot shot down in a dogfight with Pakistani aircraft returned to India on Friday, after being freed in what Islamabad called a “peace gesture” following the two countries’ biggest standoff in years.

Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, downed on Wednesday over Kashmir, crossed into India at the Wagah crossing point, hours later than expected and sporting a black eye.

On the Indian side of the border, Indian officials greeted the pilot, who was in a dark blue suit, accompanied by a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Thousands of Indians, some waving flags and singing, gathered at the border crossing to give Abhinandan a hero’s welcome after tensions with New Delhi over Kashmir escalated this week to their highest level in years.

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In New Delhi, his release was seen as a diplomatic victory, with Indian leaders welcoming the pilot’s return but announcing they would remain on “heightened” military alert, showing little sign of de-escalating the rivalry.

“As the prime minister has said, as a peace gesture and to de-escalate matters, the Indian pilot will be released. So today, this afternoon, he will be released at Wagah,” Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told a joint session of parliament on Friday.

Abhinandan’s parents were given a standing ovation by fellow passengers as they boarded a flight to Amritsar near Wagah to welcome their son.

The highly symbolic Wagah crossing gate is famed for hosting an elaborate daily ceremony by Indian and Pakistani soldiers at sundown.

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Meanwhile, Pakistan’s civil aviation authority partially reopened the country’s airspace, allowing travel to four major cities. The agency issued a statement on Friday saying all domestic and international flights will be allowed to and from the cities of Karachi, Islamabad, Peshawar and Quetta.

It said other airports, including the one located in the eastern city of Lahore that borders India, will remain closed until March 4.

The airspace closure disrupted major routes between Europe and South Asia and grounding thousands of travellers worldwide.

Tensions remained high, however, especially in Kashmir, where both countries fired barrages of shells across the Line of Control, the de facto border, at one another, leaving at least one dead as the troubled region braces for renewed hostilities.

Qureshi, meanwhile, announced he was boycotting a meeting of the organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) held in Abu Dhabi, as India had been invited.

The latest confrontation between the neighbours erupted after a suicide bombing in Indian-held Kashmir killed 40 Indian troops on February 14, with the attack claimed by a Pakistan-based militant group.

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Twelve days later Indian warplanes launched a strike inside undisputed Pakistani territory, claiming to have hit a militant camp.

An infuriated Islamabad denied casualties or damage, but a day later launched its own incursion across the Line of Control.

That sparked the dogfight that ended in both countries claiming they had shot down each other’s warplanes, and Abhinandan’s capture.

Analysts said the pilot could prove to be Islamabad’s trump card, but Prime Minister Imran Khan unexpectedly announced on Thursday that he would be released a day later in the first sign of a potential thaw.

Khan alluded to the catastrophic consequences of nuclear war and called for talks, even as he warned India should not take the announcement as a sign of weakness.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on his citizens to “stand as a wall” in the face of an enemy that “seeks to destabilise India”.

The last time an Indian pilot was captured by Pakistan, in 1999, the Red Cross (ICRC) met Flight Lieutenant K. Nachiketa at the Pakistani foreign office in Islamabad before escorting him to the Indian high commission overnight.

He left for India that same day.

On Friday, a Red Cross spokesman said the aid organisation is “ready to provide any help necessary”, but so far “is not involved” in Abhinandan’s return.

Additional reporting by AP