{"id":86043,"date":"2019-03-03T15:21:03","date_gmt":"2019-03-03T22:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=86043"},"modified":"2019-03-03T15:21:19","modified_gmt":"2019-03-03T22:21:19","slug":"pakistani-village-asks-where-are-bodies-of-militants-india-says-it-bombed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/03\/03\/pakistani-village-asks-where-are-bodies-of-militants-india-says-it-bombed\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistani village asks: Where are bodies of militants India says it bombed?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Asif Shahzad\/Abu Arqam Naqash\u00a0Courtesy NewsIn.Asia<\/em><\/h2>\n
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JABA, Pakistan (Reuters) \u2013 The only confirmed victim of India\u2019s air strike against Pakistan is still unsure why he was shaken awake in the early hours of Tuesday by an explosion that rocked his mud brick house and left him with a cut above his right eye.<\/p>\n

They say they wanted to hit some terrorists. What terrorists can you see here?\u201d said 62-year-old Nooran Shah, a resident of Jaba village, near the northeastern town of Balakot in Pakistan\u2019s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.<\/p>\n

\"Pakistani<\/p>\n

We are here. Are we terrorists?\u201d<\/p>\n

India says Tuesday\u2019s raid destroyed a major training camp of Jaish-e Mohammad, a militant group that claimed responsibility for a Feb. 14 attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir that killed 40 members of a paramilitary police unit. India\u2019s Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said the strike killed a very large number of Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists, trainers, senior commanders, and groups of jihadis who were being trained for Fidayeen action were eliminated.\u201d Fidayeen is a term used to describe Islamist militants on suicide missions.<\/p>\n

Another senior government official told reporters that about 300 militants had been killed.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, though, a senior defence official appeared to backtrack on the claims. Asked about how much damage the warplanes had caused, Air Vice Marshal R.G.K. Kapoor said it was premature\u201d to provide details about casualties. But he said the Indian armed forces had fairly credible evidence\u201d of the damage inflicted on the camp by the air strikes.<\/p>\n

India\u2019s previous death toll estimates have been rubbished by Pakistan, which says the operation was a failure that saw Indian jets bomb a largely empty hillside without hurting anyone.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t clear whether the discrepancy in claims will become a factor as Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeks a second term in India\u2019s general election, which must be held by May. There has been little sign as yet of the opposition pushing the government and the armed forces for more evidence of the mission\u2019s results.<\/p>\n

On the wooded slopes above Jaba, villagers pointed to four bomb craters and some splintered pine trees, but could see little other impact from the series of explosions that blasted them awake at around 3.00 a.m.<\/p>\n

It shook everything,\u201d said Abdur Rasheed, who drives a pickup van around the area.\u00a0He said there weren\u2019t any human casualties: No one died. Only some pine trees died, they were cut down. A crow also died.\u201d<\/p>\n

Religious School Intact<\/strong><\/p>\n

Jaba is set in a thickly wooded area of hills and streams that opens the way to the scenic Kaghan valley, a popular holiday destination for Pakistani tourists. It is a little over 60 km (37 miles) from Abbottabad, the garrison town where Osama Bin Laden was killed by American Special Forces in 2011.<\/p>\n

Locals say 400 to 500 people live locally, scattered across hills in mudbrick homes. Reuters spoke to about 15 people, none of whom knew of any casualties apart from Nooran Shah.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t seen any dead bodies, only a local who was hurt by something or hit by some window, he was hurt,\u201d said Abdur Rasheed, echoing numerous others.<\/p>\n

In Basic Health Unit, Jaba, the nearest hospital, Mohammad Saddique, an official who was on duty on the night of the attack, also dismissed claims of major casualties.<\/p>\n

It is just a lie. It is rubbish,\u201d he said. We didn\u2019t receive even a single injured person. Only one person got slightly hurt and he was treated there. Even he wasn\u2019t brought here.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Balakot, a town largely rebuilt after an earthquake in 2005, Zia Ul Haq, senior medical officer in Tehsil Headquarters Hospital said no casualties had been brought in on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

People in the area said Jaish-e Mohammad did have a presence, running not an active training camp but a madrassa, or religious school, about one km from where the bombs fell.<\/p>\n

It is Taleem ul Quran madrassa. The kids from the village study there. There is no training,\u201d said Nooran Shah.<\/p>\n

A sign which had been up earlier in the week identifying the madrassa\u2019s affiliation to Jaish-e Mohammad had been removed by Thursday and soldiers prevented reporters from gaining access.<\/p>\n

(The featured image at the top shows Balakot town)<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Asif Shahzad\/Abu Arqam Naqash\u00a0Courtesy NewsIn.Asia JABA, Pakistan (Reuters) \u2013 The only confirmed victim of India\u2019s air strike against Pakistan is still unsure why he was shaken awake in the early hours of Tuesday by an explosion that rocked his mud brick house and left him with a cut above his right eye. They say they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}