Balakot Air Strike: Imran Khan Called PM Modi Fearing India's Missile Attack, Says Ajay Bisaria

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan made an urgent midnight call to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on February 27, 2019, after the Balakot airstrike. Ajay Bisaria, former Indian High Commissioner in Pakistan, said in his book named 'The Anger Management: The Troubled Diplomatic Relationship between India and Pakistan that on the night of February 27, Pakistan feared an imminent attack from India, with "credible intelligence" indicating that nine Indian missiles were being targeted at Pakistani territory.

In a talk with the news agency ANI, Bisaria said, "After Pulwama, India had taken action in Balakot, and that was followed by Pakistan's operation, which it called swift retort in India and as a result of which, an Indian pilot, Abhinandan, was captured. I've tried to present an account of the coercive diplomacy that took place after that, to get the pilot back. There was a very credible threat of force and use of nine missiles...Pakistan made the choice of returning the pilot, not wanting to escalate that conflict. In trying to de-escalate the situation, the Prime Minister of Pakistan attempted to call the Prime Minister of India. The Pakistani PM then felt obliged to take a decision because the threat of force was very credible to return the pilot in order not to escalate the situation..."

#WATCH | On Pakistan PM Imran Khan's attempt to make a phone call to PM Modi after the Balakot strike, former High Commissioner to Pakistan, Ajay Bisaria says "After Pulwama, India had taken action in Balakot, and that was followed by Pakistan's operation, which it called swift… pic.twitter.com/zkR2zrklqb

— ANI (@ANI) January 9, 2024

This came a day after the Balakot airstrikes conducted by the Indian Air Force on terror hideouts in Pakistan on February 26, 2019. The strikes were in response to a terrorist attack in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir, on February 14, 2019. Imran Khan took a decisive step as the crisis deepened by requesting a midnight phone call to PM Modi, seeking urgent dialogue to defuse the escalating tension.

In his book 'Anger Management,' former High Commissioner to Pakistan, Ajay Bisaria said, "It is a playful title. I discovered that anger is an important motif in this (India-Pakistan) relationship. Over the last 76 years, there's been anger over partition, wars, terrorism...So there is a lot of anger, real, justified, unjustified in the relationship, and in terms of policy, there has been a lot of conversation around management, that the argument is that you cannot resolve this issue peacefully and permanently, but you can manage it in different ways through diplomacy and through other means. I think the whole idea was to juxtapose these two ideas and call it anger management..."

#WATCH | On his book 'Anger Management', former High Commissioner to Pakistan, Ajay Bisaria says "It is a playful title. I discovered that anger is an important motif in this (India-Pakistan) relationship. Over the last 76 years, there's been anger over partition, wars,… pic.twitter.com/2adcldtpYH

— ANI (@ANI) January 9, 2024

"Right after the Pulwama attack, I came to India, and I was part of the team that was monitoring the situation and dealing with it. The message that was going to Pakistan at that point was very clear that India was going to escalate the situation, in case the pilot was not returned. From all that we heard from Pakistan and all the conversations that we had, we were confident that the pilot would be returned because the consequences would have been serious, and this was a message that went loud and clear to Pakistan's system, and Pakistan then reacted," Bisaria told ANI.