Senior Congress leader Sachin Pilot has criticised the claims made by Amit Malviya who is the head of BJP’s IT department for claiming that Sachin Pilot’s father Rajesh Pilot had dropped bombs as an air force pilot in Mizoram in March 1966, saying the facts and dates are wrong as he was commissioned into the force in October that year.
In a post on X, Malviya had claimed that Rajesh Pilot and Suresh Kalmadi were flying the Indian Air Force planes that bombed Aizawl, the capital of Mizoram, on March 5, 1966.
“Later both became MPs on Congress tickets and ministers in the government. It is clear that Indira Gandhi gave a place in politics as a reward, gave respect to those who carried out air raids on their own people in the Northeast,” Malviya had said in the post in Hindi.
Hitting out at the BJP leader, Pilot said, “@amitmalviya – You have the wrong dates, wrong facts…Yes, as an Indian Air Force pilot, my late father did drop bombs. But that was on erstwhile East Pakistan during the 1971 Indo-Pak war and not as you claim, on Mizoram on the 5th of March 1966.”
“He was commissioned into the IAF only on 29th October 1966! (Certificate attached). Jai hind and a happy Independence Day,” Pilot said on X and shared the certificate according to which Rajesh Pilot was commissioned in the Indian Air Force on October 29, 1966.
On 10 August, PM Narendra Modi, in Parliament, said, “On March 5 1966, Congress had its Air Force attack on the helpless citizens in Mizoram. Congress should answer if it was the Air Force of any other country. “Were the people of Mizoram not the citizens of my country? Was their security not the responsibility of the Government of India?”
The Prime Minister said that even today, the whole of Mizoram mourns on March 5 every year.
*With inputs from agencies
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Updated: 15 Aug 2023, 11:18 PM IST
