Gunjan Saxena on Sreevidya Rajan’s claims of being the first woman pilot: Never flew with her at the same time

‘Gunjan Saxena’ has been getting positive reviews but at the same time, it has also landed into controversy for showing the Indian Air Force officers in a bad light. Apart from this, Gunjan’s coursemate, Flight Lieutenant (retd) Sreevidya Rajan, wrote in a Facebook post that the makers of biopic have ‘twisted the facts’. She wrote, “In the movie, Gunjan Saxena was shown as the only lady pilot to fly in Kargil operations. This is factually incorrect. We were posted together to Udhampur and when the Kargil conflict started, I was the first woman pilot to be sent along with the male counterparts in the first detachment of our unit which deployed at Srinagar.”

Gunjan told NDTV that she never flew with Sreevidya at the same time ‘during the Kargil operations’, nor were they posted at Srinagar at the same time. She said, “I don’t think I was looking for any clarification, about who came in one week before…”

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Gunjan said that there was no controversy in all these years. She said, “Between July 1999 and today, I don’t see what has changed. The only thing that has changed is this movie being released.” She also said, “From July 1999 till today, my name has featured in a number of headlines, in a number of articles, and in the Limca Book of Records, and in one of the promotion exams taken by the air force.”

Earlier, retired Wing Commander Namrita Chandi, in an open letter, had also accused the filmmakers of ‘peddling lies’. She also wrote in her letter, “Sreevidya Rajan was the first lady pilot who flew to Kargil – not Gunjan. Though, I am certain that Srividya has no complaints about this credit being taken away from her.”

Stay tuned for more such updates.

Also Read: Gunjan Saxena’s colleague and former IAF officer lashes out at makers of her biopic for ‘peddling lies’; calls the Janhvi Kapoor starrer ‘monstrous’