Pak Official Falsely Claims F-16 Makers Filing Suit Against India

Lockheed Martin called out Gilani’s tweet as false, saying that the company did not make this statement.

CLAIM

Pakistani bureaucrat Danyal Gilani on Friday, 1 March, tweeted that Lockheed Martin, the manufacturers of the F-16 fighter jet – which was shot down by the Indian Air Force on 27 February – will file a law suit against India over "false claims of shooting down Pakistan's F-16."

Quoting an article by WN Observer, Gilani said:

"F-16 manufacturer Lockheed Martin to file law suit against false Indian claims & expresses annoyance over the factually incorrect claim of shooting down of Pakistan's F-16 by IAF. Says all F-16s on Paskitani inventory r well counted for! (sic)"

TRUE OR FALSE?

Lockheed Martin India's official Twitter handle called out Gilani's tweet as false, and said that the company has not made any such comments.

Gilani deleted his tweet after the clarification.

Lockheed Martin has made no such comments.

— Lockheed Martin India (@LMIndiaNews) March 1, 2019

The Pakistani bureaucrat also acknowledged it was a false statement, but said that he stood by the Indian government's "failure to prove it downed a #Pakistani F-16."

"Indian media & journalists have caught #Indian govt disinformation," he wrote.

Thank you @LMIndiaNews. I acknowledge the statement is wrongly attributed to you. I picked it from a website. I take it back. However, I stand by Govt of #India's failure to prove it downed a #Pakistani F-16. Indian media & journalists have caught #Indian govt disinformation.

— Danyal Gilani (@DanyalGilani) March 2, 2019

WHO IS GILANI AND WHAT DID THE ARTICLE SAY?

According to his official Twitter handle, Gilani is the half brother of 26/11 Mumbai attacks co-conspirator David Headley. He is currently a director at the Pakistan information minister's office and had formerly served as the press secretary to the prime minister.

Gilani was recently in news after it was learnt that he was part of the Pakistani entourage that came to India to pay last respects to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in August last year, reported The Print.

The article quoted by him in the tweet above is from WN Observer. Headlined 'India to face another loss: F-16 manufacturer to file law suit against false Indian claims’, the article claims that Lockheed Martin had expressed its annoyance over the incorrect claims made by the Indian government, and hence, "reserves the right to claim damages for the likely loss of their highly integrated state of art air lions."

The article was also picked up by Pakistani online forums such as defence.pk and siasat.pk.

(With inputs from The Print)

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