ISLAMABAD – Pakistan and India gave conflicting accounts of what happenedwith the suspected militant training camp in Azad Kashmir. New Delhiinsists that its jets killed hundreds of terrorists, but Islamabad claimsthat the bombs missed their intended target.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) has provided the government with radar imageryand high-resolution satellite images of the reported air raid on a terrortraining camp inside Pakistan following a prior report that had cast doubton the Indian military’s claims.
The Press Trust of India, the country’s biggest news agency, quotedsecurity sourcesas saying that the government received all the “evidence”of the 26 February bombing raid on the facilities of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM)near the town of Balakot in northeast Pakistan.
This evidence reportedly showed that Indian S-2000 laser-guided bombs hadpierced the targeted buildings, exploding inside and causing “significantdamage”.
The IAF is also said to have collected satellite imagery of the siteproduced after the airstrike and submitted it to the authorities.
It comes on the heels of a Reuters report, which said, with referenceto another set of high-resolution satellite images, that JeM’s religiousschool at the site remained intact and that no evidence of damagedinfrastructure or casualties had been found there.
This contradicted the account of the Indian government, which claimedin late February that the airstrike killed a “very large number”of fighters, with different top officials putting the death tollat between 250 and 400. New Delhi said the raid was conducted in orderto prevent planned terrorist activities against India.
Pakistan insisted that Indian jets missed the target and dropped thepayload on a hilltop without hurting anyone. Pakistani Prime Minister ImranKhan claimed the attack was carried out to garner more public supportfor the Indian government ahead of the forthcoming elections. Indiaresponded by refuting these claims.
The airstrike followed a suicide car bombing in the India-controlled partof Kashmir, which killed over 40 paramilitary police on 14 February.Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed responsibility for the terror act, which becamethe first such attack in Kashmir in nearly two decades. -Sputnik