Pakistan releases captured Indian pilot

Pakistan handed back a captured Indian pilot on Friday as the nuclear-armed neighbours scaled back a confrontation that has prompted world powers to urge restraint, although shelling continued in the disputed Kashmir region.

Television footage showed Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman walking across the border near the town of Wagah just before 9 p.m. (1600 GMT). Indian officials confirmed he had been returned and said he would be taken for medical checks.

“While in captivity, he (Abhinandan) was treated with dignity and in line with international law,” the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Prime Minister Imran Khan announced his return “as a goodwill gesture aimed at de-escalating rising tensions with India”, it added, echoing Pakistan’s stance this week that wants to resolve the conflict through talks.

Abhinandan’s MiG-21 jet was shot down by a Pakistani fighter during a clash over Kashmir on Wednesday as two weeks of growing tensions between the two countries erupted into open hostilities.

The plane crashed on the Pakistani side of the de facto border that separates the two sides of Kashmir, a Himalayan region that has been a source of hostility between the two countries since independence from Britain in 1947.

Tensions escalated rapidly following a suicide car bombing on Feb. 14 that killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

India accused Pakistan of harbouring the Jaish-e Mohammad group behind the attack, which Islamabad denied, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised a strong response.

The conflict came at a critical time for Modi, who faces a general election that must be held by May and who had been expected to benefit from nationalist pride unleashed by the standoff.

But his government faced growing questions from opposition parties after announcing on Tuesday that Indian warplanes had destroyed a major Jaish-e Mohammad training camp in Pakistan, killing “a very large number” of militants.

Pakistan said the Indian planes missed whatever they were aiming at, and that nobody died in the attack outside Balakot, a small town in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Reuters reporters who visited the scene could see no sign of damage apart from four craters and some splintered trees. Villagers in the area said one man had been slightly hurt.

“People should decide if they trust India’s armed forces or not,” Amit Shah, president of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, said at an event on Friday, referring to opposition calls for more information about the attack.

“Those who are doubting are helping Pakistan.”

Kashmir, a Muslim-majority area that has been at the root of two of the three wars fought between India and Pakistan, is claimed by both India and Pakistan, who both control a part of the region. India has fought a three-decade old insurgency by Islamist militants in its part of the region.