It’s destiny: IAF officer who retired amid action

NEWDELHI: “I think it was destiny,” Air Marshal Chandrashekharan Hari Kumar, who till two days ago was the boss of the all crucial Western Air Command, said reflecting on the air strikes by the Indian Air Force on the Jaish terror camp in Balakot in Pakistan.

A vicious information campaign, most likely sponsored by Pakistan, however, tried to imply he was “sacked” for a “botched-up operation.”

Air Marshal Hari Kumar was part of operations during the Kargil conflict but didn’t take part in the strike operations.

“It was an opportunity and we had the capability,” he says. “I was all ready to go home after long years with the IAF when the orders came and I changed immediately back to an operational mode,” Air Marshal Hari Kumar said and, added, “we are always ready.”

Air Marshal Hari Kumar supervised the airstrikes on February 26. The next day, he coordinated India’s response to a counter strike by the Pakistan Air Force on 27 February. He superannuated on February 28, after nearly 40 years of service. Among other fighters, he himself flew and commanded a MiG-21 fighter squadron – the aircraft which Wing Commander Abhinandan flew when he shot down the US made F-16 over the skies of Nowshera on February 27.

And, while a vicious social media campaign claimed he was sacked, Air Marshal Hari Kumar attended his farewell banquet at the Air Force mess in New Delhi and quietly slipped back into the operations room to monitor the air raids.