NEW DELHI: Hours after Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan said that captured IAF pilot Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman will be freed on Friday, the Indian Air Force said it is very happy that he is returning home but dismissed suggestions that it was a goodwill gesture. The IAF insisted that it was in line with the Geneva Conventions.

Imran Khan announced in Pakistan Parliament on Thursday that Varthaman would be released on Friday as a "peace gesture".

"We are very happy Abhinandan will be freed tomorrow and look forward to his return," Air Vice Marshal R G K Kapoor, assistant chief of Air Staff, told the media.

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The pilot bailed out and landed in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir(PoK) after his MiG 21 was brought down during an aerial engagement on Wednesday with Pakistan Air Force(PAF) fighters on the Line of Control(LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir.

Asked if the IAF sees it as a goodwill move, he said, "We see it as a gesture in consonance with the Geneva Conventions."

He was addressing the media along with the representatives of the Army and the Navy, who both said the armed forces are on high alert and ready to meet any security challenge on land and sea.

Tensions between the two countries escalated after Indian fighters bombed terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed's biggest training camp near Balakot deep inside Pakistan early Tuesday. It came 12 days after the JeM claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a CRPF convoy in Kashmir, killing 40 soldiers.