Jan. 21: Pakistan today released an Indian soldier who had crossed into its territory within hours of the Indian Army's September "surgical strike" in a gesture officials here said appeared timed to portray Islamabad as responsible before a new regime in Washington.

The Pakistan Army and foreign office, in separate statements, said Chandu Babulal Chohan had crossed the Line of Control in an act of desertion following grievances against his superiors in the Indian Army.

India has insisted till now that Chohan had crossed over inadvertently and the foreign office here had not contested Pakistan's claim till late evening.

But Pakistan emphasised it had persuaded Chohan to return to India and address his grievances through formal mechanisms, almost echoing the Indian Army chief who has criticised soldiers who have turned to social media to air frustrations.

The release, at the Wagah border at 2:30 this afternoon, came less than a day after Donald Trump was sworn in as America's 45th President with little clarity in both New Delhi and Islamabad over his administration's South Asia policy.

Traditionally, Pakistan has sought America's formal intervention in the resolution of the Kashmir dispute, while India has insisted that all disputes between the neighbours must be resolved by them alone, bilaterally.

But both India and Pakistan have for long also sought Washington's pressure on the other, by portraying themselves as more responsible than the other.

"As a gesture of goodwill and in continuation of our efforts to maintain peace and tranquility (sic) along Line of Control and Working Boundary, Sepoy Chandu Babulal Chohan has been convinced to return to his own country," Pakistan's Inter-Services Press Relations, the army spokesperson's office, said in a statement today.

Both countries have made gestures, since Trump's November 8 election, to try and portray themselves as more mature than the other.

Pakistan sent its top diplomat - Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's foreign policy adviser Sartaj Aziz - to Amritsar for a meeting on Afghanistan's future, though India had boycotted the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in Islamabad.

Last month Sharif and Aziz had both sent messages to ailing Indian foreign minister Sushma Swaraj wishing her a speedy recovery, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi had wished his Pakistan counterpart on his birthday on December 25.

Last week, junior defence minister Subhash Bhambre had told reporters that Pakistan had signalled it would soon release Chohan. It did so today - with a touch of solidarity, but also a barb.

India and Pakistan had bitterly argued over their description of operations on the night of September 28-29 last year along their de facto border. India called the operations a "surgical strike" aimed at "launch pads" from which Pakistan-based terrorists were about to attack India. Pakistan insisted the Indian Army had merely carried out heavy cross-border bombardment, and had taken foreign journalists to border areas where the surgical strike was believed to have taken place, to try and buttress its argument.

But neither India nor Pakistan has officially ever linked Chohan crossing over to the "surgical strike" despite the timing and the fact that the soldier was posted with the 37 Rashtriya Rifles, close to the strip along the LoC where the Indian strike occurred.

For Pakistan, any link would have been tantamount to accepting that Indian soldiers had crossed into its territory for a "surgical strike". For India, the link would have meant acknowledging a botch-up in implementing its cross-border strike.

Today, Pakistan continued abstaining from any link between Chohan and the "surgical strike".

But by asserting that Chohan had deserted the Indian Army - the Pakistan Army statement referred to "grievances of maltreatment against his commanders" - Pakistan also hit at a recent series of embarrassing allegations Indian security forces have faced.