Rafale discovered to have been shot down with inquiries on whether Pakistan downed more than one
Rafale aircraft recalled as shot down, whether Pakistan shot down more than one first in war, French intelligence official. Three Indian Rafale jets have now been confirmed downed, according to a senior French intelligence official who told CNN that Pakistan had shot down an Indian Air Force Rafale fighter and it was the first time the French made fighter jet had been shot down in combat. Pakistan said on Wednesday that it had shot down five Indian Air Force aircraft, three of them being Rafales.
According to French officials, French authorities are investigating whether Pakistan shot down more than one Rafale overnight CNN has reported. Pictures of wreckage of the plane that crashed in occupied Kashmir bears a French company label but experts say there is nothing certain to suggest that it is part of a Rafale. The French company that manufactures the Rafale, Dassault Aviation, did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
The military of France has not made any official comment on the incident. Analysts say the destruction of the Rafale will set a Pandora’s Box of the past against Modi. The Indian government has been accused of paying three times the price for these aircraft. Modi declined to produce the sale-agreement to the assembly. PM Narendra Modi of India will have to pay the price of military war against Pakistan and what he will have to answer for himself and politically in future.
Analysts say that in the near future, he will be able to calculate it, one of the backgrounds of which is also related to the three Indian Rafale aircraft in this adventure, with which the Mushaq pilots of the Pakistani Air Force attacked. Foreign news agencies have confirmed three Indian Air Force aircraft were also destroyed, as Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif said in his press conference three Rafale aircraft were also among the aircraft of the Indian Air Force that were destroyed. The acquisition of such aircraft had earlier triggered a controversy because the opposition accused Narendra Modi of blowing up the price of the aircraft in order to benefit his friend Anil Ambani.
As stipulated in such details, in January 2012, the Indian Ministry of Defense announced India’s intention to purchase 126 fighter aircraft from France, the Dassault Rafale jets. Under this deal, as per the agreement when full manufacturing of the fighters from the French company Dassault Aviation would be completed, then they would deliver 18 fighter aircrafts to India, and the other 108 aircrafts were to be manufactured in India. Negotiations started to fix the terms and procedures of the deal. The year 2014 arrived but things couldn’t be sealed. So far, everything was happening based on rules, but what happened afterwards created a problem for the Modi Government. During this period the budget for the aircraft has doubled thus the Modi government opted to purchase only 36 full jet aircrafts instead of the 126 aircrafts and the plan of manufacturing them through the Indian state-owned company was aborted with the argument that the state-owned defense equipment supplier that is the Hindustan Aeronautics could not manufacture the fighter jets.
Congress President Rahul Gandhi called for making the deal public which the Modi government resisted. The Modi government just found the excuse that there was risk of divulgence of the state secrets in the Rafale deal, and that is why, the Indian government could not introduce the Rafale deal in assembly because of concerns for national security. According to the opposition, Anil Ambani had established a new company called Reliance Defence 13 days before Narendra Modi departed for France, but Anil Ambani and his company denied these allegations.
On the next day after the deal was signed, manish tewari the congress spokesperson, had questions regarding Anil Ambani’s presence during the government deal and procurement process. He accused that the Rafale aircraft purchase deal had been signed over three times by the Modi government and that Anil Ambani had benefited from the deal. Air Chief Marshal Birender Singh and Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had declared the deal clean and transparent and the purchase legal.
The controversy was still at an all-time high when former French President Francois Hollande on an interview with a French publication had said that “Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi insisted on making a deal for the aircraft with Anil Ambani’s Reliance Group”. He made this statement later on India’s NDTV.
