Everything must be done in a measured way. It's actually of greater advantage to you if he goes around claiming he broke his leg falling down stairs. Unless you want to score brownie points trying to look tough.
Breaking someone's leg isn't a big deal, I did it to someone when I was still in school. The guy decided to say he fell instead, or else I would have gotten myself expelled. Once you cross a limit there are always repercussions.
PA relies a lot on its own image, so it has to create an image of bravado in order to stay relevant. But if they are pushed to the point where their image is completely shattered, there may not be any going back from there. Which is why GoI gave them an escape to save face.
What happened now is they used GoI's measured response to push themselves in a corner by making up stories, so the next time GoI may not care a lot about their face, since we now know for sure that they do not bite. IAF has successfully proven that there is a threshold within which the Indian military can operate without getting a significant blowback from Pakistan. This is something Pakistan has also realised and it's too late for them to turn back the clock.
