NEW DELHI: “Operation Bandar (monkey)”. This was the innocuous sounding code-name given by IAF to the pre-dawn air strikes conducted by its Mirage-2000 fighters against the major Jaish-e-Mohammed training facility at Balakot in Pakistan on February 26, with the aim being to maintain overall secrecy of the operation.

The Army, in turn, code-named its heightened operational alert and shoring up of defences along the border to thwart a possible Pakistan retaliation to the air strikes as “Operation Zafran" (saffron flowers used in cooking), said sources on Friday.

The Navy, however, did not give any specific name to the deployment of its warships and submarines in the north Arabian Sea because they were already there as part of Tropex-2019 (theatre level operational readiness exercise) underway at that time. The Navy just swiftly changed gears to put its exercise on hold and forward deploy its warships and submarines to deter any misadventure by Pakistan.

“The idea behind the name ' Operation Bandar ’ was to give a nondescript, mundane tag to the air strikes to maintain operational secrecy. It was chosen to make it sound like a routine, small-time affair,” said a source.

A dozen Mirage-2000s, backed by IL-78 mid-air refuellers and AWACS (airborne warning and control system) aircraft, were deployed in the “strike package” against Balakot from Gwalior, Agra and Bareilly, instead of forward airbases to retain the element of surprise in the early hours of February 26, as was earlier reported by TOI.

The IAF had also deployed “a decoy package” of Sukhoi-30MKIs ostensibly headed towards the JeM headquarters in Bahawalpur in the Punjab province to ensure Pakistani combat air patrols were lured away from the actual “strike package” meant for Balakot in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

The IAF says it achieved its “strategic and operational aim of successfully bombing” the JeM terror facility at Balakot, hitting five of the six designated targets with the Spice-2000 precision-guided penetration bombs let loose by the Mirage-2000s.

But the IAF did lose the MiG-21 being flown by Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, who shot down an F-16 before he himself ejected and was captured by Pakistani forces, in the aerial skirmish in the Nowshera sector along the Line of Control a day after Operation Bandar.

Moreover, at least one senior IAF officer and three others are also facing stringent disciplinary action for the grave operational lapses that led to “friendly fire” bringing down the Mi-17 helicopter – which killed six IAF personnel and a civilian -- at Budgam around the same time as the aerial skirmish, as reported by TOI earlier.

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