ISLAMABAD: India on Tuesday blamed the March 9 firing of a missile into Pak­istan on violation of Stan­dard Operating Proce­dures and sacked three Indian Air Force (IAF) officials.

A mid-range BrahMos cruise missile had struck a cold storage in Mian Channu after originating from India.

No loss of life occurred due to the incident, which India had then claimed to have happened accidentally during a routine maintenance operation because of a technical malfunction.

The missile travelled 124km inside Pakistan for three minutes and 44 seconds, but it was not shot down by Pakistani air defences. The military had claimed to have tracked the missile all along its route till it hit the cold storage.

The incident could have potentially prompted a catastrophic accidental excha­nge between the two nuclear armed neighbours.

According to a press statement issued by IAF from New Delhi: “A Court of Inquiry (Col), set up to establish the facts of the case, including fixing responsibility for the incident, found that deviation from the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) by three officers led to the accidental firing of the missile.”

“These three officers have primarily been held responsible for the incident. Their services have been terminated by the Central Govt with immediate effect. Termination orders have been served upon the officers on 23 Aug 22,” it further said.

The IAF did not identify the three officers. Indian media, meanwhile, claimed that the three were mid ranking officers. An officer of the rank of group captain was in charge of the BrahMos battery from which the missile was launched.

The statement insisted that the incident happened accidentally meaning the violation of SOPs by the sacked officers was not willful.

The CoI, which was headed by a two star air force general, took five and a half months to reach this conclusion. Soon after the formation of CoI, Pakistan had rejected it and demanded a joint probe into the incident on the grounds that the missile had hit a site inside Pakistani territory.

Islamabad had also questioned the safety and security of Indian weapon systems. There was, however, no immediate reaction from Islamabad following the IAF statement on the findings of CoI.

Some officials, speaking privately on the background, expressed dissatisfaction on the outcome and said more answers were needed. “The Indian explanation isn’t enough,” one of them maintained.

They said the incident exposed Indian capability to manage its arsenal and the high-end technologies possessed by it. Moreover, they reminded that Indian military was increasingly getting radicalised, which could have repercussions for regional peace and security.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2022