Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot Abhinandan Varthaman, who was shot down by Pakistani Air Force and captured by Pakistan, has officially retired today.

The world will never forget how India awarded him for humiliation.

“Tea is fantastic” will be remembered forever! ☕🇵🇰 pic.twitter.com/CnZdXBxJr4

— Zard si Gana (@ZardSi) September 3, 2026

Varthaman, who was awarded India's Vir Chakra for his actions during the dogfight, took premature retirement after serving in the IAF for 22 years . According to reports, he has joined Goa-based regional airline FLY91 as a pilot .

The 2019 Aerial Confrontation

On February 27, 2019, Varthaman was flying a MiG-21 Bison when it was shot down by the Pakistan Air Force during an air duel . He ejected from his aircraft and landed in Pakistani territory, where he was captured and held for three days .

During his captivity, a video emerged showing the Indian pilot sipping tea and praising his Pakistani captors, saying: "The tea is fantastic" — a phrase that became iconic in Pakistan and continues to be remembered to this day .

He was released on March 1, 2019, as a goodwill gesture by Pakistan .

A Controversial Legacy

While India awarded Varthaman the Vir Chakra for reportedly shooting down a Pakistani F-16, Pakistan has consistently rejected this claim . Foreign Policy magazine reported that US defense officials confirmed all Pakistani F-16s were "present and accounted for" . Notably, Varthaman himself has never publicly claimed the kill .

The phrase "Tea is fantastic" remains a cultural touchstone in Pakistan, with the hashtag "#TsFantastic" trending for 36 hours following the incident .

🇬🇧 KING CHARLES PRAISES PAKISTAN! 🇵🇰

King Charles thanks PM Shehbaz Sharif and Field Marshal Asim Munir for their efforts to promote peace during the Iran–US conflict.

He thanked PCB Chairman Mohsin Naqvi during his meeting with Pakistan’s national cricket team. pic.twitter.com/z5A5lPRKnT

— Zard si Gana (@ZardSi) September 3, 2026

The monarch expressed his appreciation while welcoming Pakistan's national cricket team to Clarence House, the historic royal residence in London.

Royal Recognition for Pakistan's Mediation

King Charles warmly welcomed the Pakistan squad as they prepare for the third and final Test against England at Edgbaston. While the occasion centered on cricket, the conversation turned significantly to Pakistan's diplomatic efforts to resolve the US-Iran conflict.

During the meeting, British High Commissioner to Pakistan Jane Marriott briefed the King on the ongoing mediation process, specifically highlighting the role of Mohsin Naqvi, Chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and Pakistan's Interior Minister, in representing the country's peace initiatives.

The King engaged Naqvi in detail about the latest developments in the mediation process, expressing surprise that the conflict had continued. He acknowledged Pakistan's patient and persistent role, commending the country for its efforts to help ease tensions.

Naqvi described the mediation journey as "a story of one step forward and one step back" , while the British High Commissioner noted that Pakistan, under Naqvi's representation, had played an "important role" in efforts to maintain regional peace.

Pakistan's Diplomatic Role Recognized

The royal endorsement follows earlier acknowledgments of Pakistan's peacemaking role. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had previously credited Field Marshal Asim Munir for spearheading the advanced mediation between Washington and Tehran, describing it as a joint venture between the civilian government and the military establishment.

Pakistan has positioned itself as a key mediator, hosting earlier rounds of US-Iran talks and facilitating the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, which was electronically signed by President Donald Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

A Shared Bond: Age and Cricket

The meeting also provided an opportunity for a lighter exchange. King Charles, born in 1948, noted with interest that he is nearly the same age as Pakistan, which will mark its 80th anniversary in 2027.

Pakistan's captain Babar Azam and other players, including Mohammad Abbas and Shan Masood, interacted with the monarch. Babar presented the King with a signed cricket bat, while PCB Chairman Naqvi also offered a gift.

The meeting, which included discussions on the ongoing Test series and playing conditions in England, offered a brief reprieve for Pakistan's cricket team, which has faced a challenging tour after losing the first two Tests against England.

The deployment extensions, ordered by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, will affect US Army units, air-defence forces, fighter squadrons and Navy personnel operating in and around the Middle East, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The US military currently has roughly 50,000 troops in the region.

Quoting from a letter sent by military leaders to soldiers’ families, The Journal reported that elements of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, one of the US military’s principal rapid-response forces, could remain in the region well into 2027.

“We do not share that lightly, and we understand that a longer tour weighs heavily on every household, including our own,” the letter said.

The extensions represent a significant shift from expectations at the beginning of the US campaign against Iran. Hegseth had presented the operation as a swift and decisive military action. Six months into the conflict, however, the Pentagon is preparing for deployments lasting a year or longer.

Army air-defence units responsible for intercepting Iranian missiles and drones have also had their normal deployment periods extended. Their standard nine-month tours have in some cases been stretched to a full year, while some units originally scheduled for assignments in Europe or the Pacific have spent more than a year in the Middle East.

The prolonged deployments are raising concerns about the effect on military readiness.

“The operational tempo for air defence units before this war was already among the highest of the joint force,” Tom Karako, director of the Missile Defence Project at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, told The Journal.

Extended deployments, he warned, could wear down troops, delay equipment maintenance and hamper longer-term military modernisation.

The strain is also being felt by Navy personnel. Fighting in the region has disrupted the Navy’s normal ability to resupply forces, forcing greater reliance on the remote US base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean.

Sailors aboard some warships have consequently faced reduced opportunities for mail, care packages and time away from their vessels.

The US Navy currently has about 19 warships operating in connection with the regional military posture, while additional aircraft and air-defence systems remain deployed to protect American forces and bases.

The Pentagon’s open-ended deployment framework is intended to preserve the president’s military options as the conflict develops. It does not necessarily mean that all of the forces now in the region will remain there continuously until 2027, but it gives commanders and the White House a baseline force from which operations can continue or be expanded.

The uncertainty is particularly striking because Trump has privately discussed with advisers whether to declare the conflict with Iran over, even as American and Iranian forces continue to exchange direct strikes. 

The longer the conflict continues, military commanders face a difficult balance: maintaining sufficient forces to defend American personnel and preserve the president’s options while preventing repeated and extended deployments from exhausting troops, disrupting family life and leaving less time to maintain and modernise the wider US military.

The report was jointly prepared by the two Paris-based organisations, which specialise in financial and economic matters.

Based on feedback from around 45 jurisdictions and organisations, including India and Pakistan, the report highlighted cases involving illicit money transfers through such HOSSPs. In both India and Pakistan, it noted the growing role of underground banking and financial networks in facilitating illicit finance.

The report highlighted the vulnerability of these systems to money laundering and terrorist financing, with some cases involving more than €500 million being laundered through underground banking and hawala-based schemes within just a few months.

It found that the criminal misuse of underground banking and HOSSPs was a widespread global phenomenon, with more than 80pc of reporting jurisdictions identifying these systems as among the principal channels or techniques used for professional money laundering.

Referring to an episode involving a hawala network that used social media and mobile money transfers to facilitate transactions with Pakistan, the report said the Central Bank of Oman (CBO) received intelligence through its whistleblower channel about individuals suspected of operating an unlicensed cross-border remittance business to Pakistan.

The reporting entity detected the activity after observing a sudden reduction in customer remittances through specific corridors, the report said.

The CBO conducted further enquiries, including engaging with customers, joining the relevant WhatsApp group and collecting supporting evidence before reporting the case. Its follow-up enquiries, including social media monitoring and off-site analysis, identified a WhatsApp group named “XX Money Exchange”, which was operated by foreign nationals to advertise foreign exchange and remittance services to expatriate communities in Oman.

The hawaladars offered rates below the formal market rate, with minimal or no fees, and encouraged customers to share the group with others seeking to remit funds. Customers transferred money to the suspected hawaladars either in cash or through mobile-linked transfers. The hawaladars then sent screenshots showing proof of payment through an e-wallet to a corresponding e-wallet maintained with a payment service provider in the destination jurisdiction.

“The scheme exploited lower-cost remittance channels in destination countries, including fee-free transfers to Pakistan through channels such as Raast, as well as exchange rate differentials offered by some digital wallet or payment providers,” the report said.

This allowed the hawaladars to generate margins while offering cheaper remittance services. Omani authorities identified six suspected individuals believed to form a connected network of hawaladars, with transaction flows of approximately $72,293 recorded over a one-year period.

Likewise, illegal online gambling proceeds were being laundered through HOSSP-based networks in India. The report said Indian authorities had identified a professional money laundering (PML) scheme linked to an illegal online gambling platform that generated proceeds from sports betting, card games and other forms of online wagering.

The platform relied on a decentralised network of “panel operators” to manage customer deposits and withdrawals. These operators used UPI, online banking, digital wallets, mule accounts and accounts opened using stolen identities to receive and transfer funds.

The structure enabled the organisers to separate the gambling platform from the financial flows supporting it. A portion of the proceeds was converted into cash and moved abroad through hawala and other underground banking channels. The funds were then reintroduced into India as purported foreign investment from the UAE, disguising their criminal origin, the report said.

The report was prepared with input from experts from 32 jurisdictions, including Pakistan, as well as 22 FATF members and three observers — Europol, Interpol and UNODC.

It said that while HOSSPs could serve legitimate purposes, the provision of underground banking or unregistered HOSSP services was generally a criminal offence in most countries and contravened FATF standards. The standards recommend that countries require such entities to be licensed or registered to provide these services.

The report emphasised how underground banking and hawala networks had evolved into increasingly organised, business-like structures. It said these networks had become highly sophisticated, scalable and commercially operated, contributing to the emergence of “money laundering as a service” — the systematic outsourcing of money laundering functions to specialists — and professional money laundering as a commercialised business model.

Such networks offer lower commission rates and can move large volumes of value rapidly across borders, making them attractive to organised crime groups, the report said.

The FATF also warned of the increasing involvement of lawyers, accountants, auditors, notaries, corporate formation agents, financial consultants, real estate agents, casinos and junket operators in facilitating such schemes.

It also highlighted the growing integration of these networks with the formal financial sector, saying professional money launderers were increasingly using bank accounts, fintech platforms, payment service providers, virtual IBANs, prepaid cards and virtual asset wallets as entry and exit points in money laundering cycles, exploiting regulatory blind spots.

Discussing the rise of “digital hawala”, the report said nearly 70pc of respondents had identified the integration of new technologies and a growing shift towards digital hawala. These included operators using encrypted messaging applications such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal, as well as digital tools to coordinate transactions; customers initiating transfers through bank accounts, mobile wallets, fintech applications or instant payment systems; and operators using virtual assets, including stablecoins, to settle balances among themselves.

The report also identified the use of AI-based tools and the development of purpose-built “hawala apps”.

These developments can improve the efficiency of PML services, make illicit funds easier to conceal, and expand the geographic reach and resilience of underground banking- and HOSSP-based professional money laundering schemes.

The report’s findings demonstrated that the criminal use of these systems was no longer limited to cash-based crimes such as drug trafficking or smuggling. “Today, criminals are using these systems to launder proceeds from a broader spectrum of criminal economies including fraud, cyber-enabled crime, terrorist financing, illegal gaming and gambling and transnational organised crime,” it noted.

Through a series of operational case studies, the report shows how professional money laundering networks increasingly rely on underground banking systems, for example, to move proceeds from large-scale cross-border drug trafficking, or use digital hawala networks to finance members of terrorist organisations.

Drawing on evidence from more than 50 jurisdictions across the FATF Global Network and partner organisations, the report provides a global picture of how these systems operate and identifies good practices to help jurisdictions and the private sector strengthen their ability to detect, investigate, prosecute and disrupt the professional money laundering infrastructure that enables serious and organised crime, corruption, fraud and terrorist financing.

The findings highlight the importance of combining targeted prevention and enforcement measures with proportionate financial inclusion efforts, supported by legal clarity, enhanced detection capabilities, public-private feedback loops, domestic co-ordination and international co-operation.

The fire early last Wednesday drew shock and horror across the country with lawmakers in both houses of parliament demanding accountability.

Footage from the incident showed that a nurse, Razia Noreen, entered the nursery at around 6:39am and emerged seconds later carrying a baby, rescuing the child. She then attempted to re-enter the nursery shortly afterwards.

The prime minister met with Noreen personally at the PM House in Islamabad, where the nurse recounted how she discovered the fire and her efforts to save the children in the maternity ward.

In a conversation at the PM House, the premier lauded the nurse, saying that the whole nation was not only praising her courage and bravery but was proud of her.

“You are truly a daughter of the nation,” he told her, adding that her actions would be recorded in history.

The nurse recounted that while preparing medication, she shut the medicine cabinet to suddenly catch sight of the fire.

“I threw the cabinet door shut and rushed inside,” she said, adding, “I didn’t even think about it.”

Noreen said that she had also told another nurse to “save the kids”, who had conducted rescue efforts outside the ward where there were more babies and their mothers.

“Post-natal mothers have undergone operations,” she said. “She immediately tried to rescue them … she knew that I was inside and would do something.”

Noting that the fire was very strong, she rescued one of the smaller babies and brought him outside to leave “in safe hands” with someone she knew.

“When Dr Abdul Rehman came out, I handed [the baby] over and rushed back inside,” she said, but added that as she was rescuing the second baby, a sudden blast caused a blackout.

PM Shehbaz reiterated that the whole nation was paying tribute to the nurse’s actions and added, “The mother of the child you saved will bless you.”

Noreen stressed that it was her “responsibility” to act, as nurses were given the responsibility of taking care of others’ children. She also expressed that she wished she could have saved the remaining children.

The premier noted that on March 23, the nurse would be given the Sitara-i-Khidmat and Rs10 million for her service. Noreen thanked PM Shehbaz and expressed her gratitude for bestowing such an honour on her.

PM Shehbaz had earlier approved the award and a cash reward for the nurse, who had “saved a child without regard for her own life”, according to the PMO.

“Razia Noreen has demonstrated an exceptional sense of responsibility and humanity. The entire nation, including myself, is proud of Nurse Razia Noreen for risking her own life to save the child. Such dutiful individuals cannot be praised enough,” he was quoted as saying.

It is disturbing to note that though jail officials and government representatives have consistently denied allegations that the two prisoners are being held in solitary confinement for extended periods, medical records submitted by the authorities indicate that the former prime minister has started suffering physically from the effects of isolation. Indeed, the court noted that “the admitted fact remains that access of the general prison population to his place of confinement is substantially restricted and his meaningful social interaction is consequently limited”, and that the record “prima facie recognises the adverse impact of restricted social and familial interaction upon the prisoner’s psychological and physical well-being”.

As the court rightly noted, a prisoner’s right to life, dignity and humane treatment “are not extinguished at the prison gate”. This, in particular, seems to be something that those running the Pakistani penal system have never quite wrapped their heads around. Human beings cannot be mistreated, even when they have erred. The law may prescribe the most severe punishment for their crimes, but that does not mean prisoners can be treated by their jailers as they see fit.

Unfortunately, most Pakistani prisoners are frequently made to suffer far more than what is just or right. The injustices done to them are also very rarely remedied. Therefore, for a once powerful leader to be made to suffer in this manner is merely a symptom of a much larger disease. Our penal system needs much more than one-time interventions to address its maladies; it needs to be rebuilt as an instrument of justice rather than remain a means of inflicting pain.

Published in Dawn, September 3rd, 2026