Srinagar
Pakistani villagers in the area where Indian jets struck what officials in New Delhi said was a militant training camp said they heard four loud bangs in the early hours of Tuesday but reported only one person wounded by bomb shards, Reuters reported.
“We saw trees have fallen down and one house damaged and four craters where the bombs had fallen,” the report quoted Mohammad Ajmal, a 25-year-old who visited the site as saying.
Earlier, Indian Air Force claimed to have carried out aerial strikes at major militant training camps in Pakistan. It said a number of Jaish militants were killed including a relative of the Jaish founder.
Incidentally, the Balakot which the Indian fighters hit is not the Balakote that was part of the erstwhile Poonch and is closer to the Line of Control. It falls in Pakistan’s north-western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. It was in this village where the BBC Urdu talked to a resident who confirmed the wee hour bombing in which, he claimed one person was injured and many houses were damaged.
In response to India’s claim, the spokesperson for the Pakistan Armed Forces, Major General Asif Ghafoor said; “Indian Air Force violated Line of Control (LoC). Pakistan Air Force immediately scrambled. Indian aircrafts gone back. Details to follow,” Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Qamar Jawed Bajwa had visited Pakistani troops deployed at the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir and instructed them to “be ready to face any eventuality,” on Friday.
