A PAKISTANI fighter pilot who shot down an Indian civilian aircraft during the 1965 war between the neighbouring countries, believing it to be on a military mission, has written to the family of the pilot offering his condolences.
In his e-mail to Farida Singh, daughter of the pilot of the ill-fated Indian aircraft, Qais Hussain (70) said he regretted the loss of eight lives in the incident but was acting on orders.
“The fact that this all happened in the confusion of a tragic war was never lost to us. We are all pawns in this terrible game of war and peace,” wrote Hussain who was a young fighter pilot during the second war between India and Pakistan 46 years ago.
“It’s not an apology, it’s a condolence. I did not do anything wrong. I did what I was ordered to do in the line of duty. But I feel sad about the civilians who were on board that plane. It should not have happened” he said.
Hussain’s apology is playing out on several Indian television news channels and newspapers as a hugely emotional incident between the rival countries who, since independence 64 years ago, have fought three wars and an 11-week-long border skirmish in 1999 that threatened to escalate into a nuclear conflagration.
In September 1965 the Beechcraft with eight people – a senior Indian politician, his wife, a journalist and three aides that was piloted by two young air force officers – had drifted off course along the western border in the Kutch region straying into Pakistani territory.
Pakistan’s air command suspected the aircraft was on a military reconnaissance mission to open a new war front and Hussain was ordered by his superiors to shoot it down.
“The incident is as fresh in my mind as if it happened yesterday,” Hussain’s letter to Singh said.
“When I caught sight of [your father’s aircraft] at 3,000 feet I made a pass so close that I could read his markings and the number of the aircraft.
“Your father spotted my presence immediately and started climbing and waggling his wings seeking mercy.
“Instead of firing at him at first sight, I relayed to my controller that I had intercepted an eight-seat transport aircraft.”
The e-mail goes on to say Hussain hoped he would be called back without firing a shot.
But after a lapse of “three to four long interminable minutes” he was ordered to shoot it down.
“I feel sorry for you, your family and the other seven families who lost their lives,” he wrote.
“I was merely the man behind the gun,” Hussain said on NDTV where Singh and some other relatives of those killed saw him for the first time on Wednesday night.
The former fighter pilot said that after returning to the air base at Karachi in southern Pakistan he felt elated over completing his mission successfully.
But the mood changed later that evening when the state-run All India Radio reported that the plane was a civilian aircraft with eight non-military people on board.
Hussain decided to write the condolence message after all these years when an opportunity arose through his aviation contacts, who then put him in touch with the dead pilot’s daughter.
In her gracious reply an overwhelmed Ms Singh said: “In all the struggles that followed we never, not for one moment, bore bitterness or hatred for the person who actually pulled the trigger and caused my father’s death.”