NEW DELHI: Pakistan has rejected the closure report of the Court of Inquiry (CoI) in the case regarding the accidental firing of a missile. The responsibility for the accident was fixed on three officers of the Indian Air Force on Tuesday and all of them have been terminated from service.
Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a late Wednesday statement, said, "Pakistan rejects India’s purported closure of the incident of the firing of a supersonic Missile into Pakistani territory on 9 March 2022 and reiterates demand for a joint probe."
The incident involved the accidental firing of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile, which landed deep inside Pakistan. The IAF, in its statement on Tuesday, had said, “BrahMos missile was accidentally fired on 09 March 2022. A CoI, 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.”
The IAF statement added, “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.”
The supersonic cruise missile had landed around 120 kilometres in Pakistan’s Mian Channu in Khanewal district. It did not have any explosive, hence there was no detonation. Expressing regret for the incident the Indian government had ordered to probe the matter at a high-level. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) in a statement said, “On 9 March 2022, in the course of a routine maintenance, a technical malfunction led to the accidental firing of a missile.”
India had expressed relief that there has been no loss of life due to the accident. Pakistan had summoned India’s Charge d’Affaires and had registered a protest for “violation of its airspace”.