'We didn't intercept Indian drones because...': Khawaja Asif tells Pakistan National Assembly, BJP says...

Pakistan's defence minister Khawaja Asif on Friday said that the drone attack by India was mounted to detect the locations of Pakistan's air defence units. He added that the Pakistani Army did not intercept Indian drones because it did not want to leak its locations.

Asif said this during his address to the National Assembly (Pakistani equivalent of the Indian Parliament). He said: "The drone attack was mounted to detect our locations. It's a technical thing that I can't explain. We didn't intercept the drones, so that the location of our aerial defence units won't get leaked." 

Asif's statement is not only in stark contradiction to what the Indian government has said but also to the claims of the Pakistan Army. Soon after Khawaja Asif's statement went viral on social, Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) national spokesperson Pradip Bhandari took to X (formerly Twitter) and decided to have some fun.

Sharing a video of Asif's speech in the National Assembly, Bhandari wrote: "Khawaja Asif has lost it completely. 'We didn't intercept Indian drones because we didn't want to leak our locations,' says Pakistan's Defence Minister. When Indian missiles hit, even your missile defence locations got exposed -- not by your choice, but by India's precision (sic)."

On Thursday, India said that it targeted air defence units in Pakistan across several cities. India used Israeli-developed Harpy kamikaze drones in these attacks. Moreover, the Pakistani Army claimed that they had shot down 25 Indian drones since Wednesday night. 

Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, Director General of Inter-Service Public Relations (ISPR), however, acknowledged that the drone attacks in Rawalpindi and an area near Karachi led to a civilian casualty and an injury.