More than a year after the Pahalgam terror attack and India’s retaliatory strikes under Operation Sindoor, a video of a Pakistani military officer has gone viral for all the wrong reasons. He proudly claims Pakistan successfully targeted two Indian airbases that, by every available account, simply do not exist.
In the clip circulating on social media, Captain Muneeb Zamal tells a Pakistani news channel, “We were assigned two targets, Rajouri Airbase and Mamun Airbase, and we successfully engaged them.” The problem? Neither location has an airbase.
Rajouri is a district in Jammu and Kashmir, situated along the Line of Control in a heavily militarised zone. Mamun is a military cantonment in Pathankot, Punjab. Neither houses an operational Air Force base, and no Indian or international source has ever listed them as such.
The remarks were made in reference to Pakistan’s counter-offensive, dubbed Operation Bunyan Ul Marsoos, launched in response to India’s Operation Sindoor, itself a series of counterterror strikes following the Pahalgam attack in April 2025. As part of that counter-offensive, Pakistan fired a barrage of missiles and drone swarms at Indian cities and defence installations across Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, and Gujarat.
India’s multi-layered air defence system intercepted and destroyed every incoming threat. Colonel Sofiya Qureshi, during official briefings at the time, confirmed that long-range weapons and loitering munitions deployed by Pakistan were neutralised without any loss of life or damage to property on Indian soil.
On 10 May 2025, Pakistan also deployed the Fatah-1 guided artillery rocket, which was shot down over Sirsa, Haryana. Missile debris from various strikes later turned up in agricultural fields in Sirsa, Barmer in Rajasthan, and Jalandhar in Punjab. In September 2025, suspected wreckage from a Fatah-1 was recovered from Srinagar’s Dal Lake.
Captain Zamal also noted, in the same interview, that the presence of civilians near missile launch sites during preparation served as a “confidence-building” element, a remark that drew its own share of scrutiny.
The internet, however, has largely focused on the phantom airbases. The clip has been widely mocked across social media platforms.
“Archaeologists, cartographers, Google Maps, and the Indian Air Force have launched a joint mission to locate the legendary Rajouri Airbase and Mamun Airbase,” wrote one user on X.
Another posted: “Fateh-1 hits Rajouri and Mamun airbases so hard that they cease to even exist! Next target: Atlantis?”
