Pakistan to release Indian pilot captured in Kashmir attacks.

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Imran Khan says pilot to be freed as ‘peace gesture’ amid rising tensions between nuclear neighbours

Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman is to be released by Pakistan. Photograph: Ispr Handout/EPA
▼ Pakistansays it will release a captured Indian pilot as a “peace gesture” between the neighbours amid the gravest military crisis in the subcontinent in two decades.
Imran Khan, the country’s prime minister, told a joint sitting of parliament that the Indian wing commander, Abhinandan Varthaman, who was shot down over the heavily guarded ceasefire line in disputed Kashmir on Wednesday, would be released on Friday.
“We have captured an Indian pilot,” Khan said. “As a peace gesture, tomorrow we are going to release him.”
Varthaman was shot down on Wednesday during a dogfight in  the Himalayan foothills, the first between the countries to be publicly acknowledged for 48 years. It followed tit-for-tat airstrikes this week that have led to the closure of dozens of airports and put major cities on high alert across the subcontinent.
A report in Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper on Thursday quoted witnesseswho said he had fought off angry villagers with a pistol at the crash site and had tried to swallow and destroy maps and documents in his possession before he was taken into Pakistani custody.
Videos released by Islamabad showed Varthaman being beaten by villagers near the crash site and then interrogated in a bloodied uniform. Both were widely shared on WhatsApp and social media.
By late evening, in footage that appeared to be aimed at calming public anger in India, the pilot was shown drinking tea and praising the way he was being treated by his captors, who he said were “thorough gentlemen”.
The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, was addressing an audience at a science and technology prize soon after the news of the pilot’s impending release was announced. He made reference to scientists needed to design pilot projects, before quipping: “Just now one pilot project has been completed”. (▪ ▪ ▪)

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