The Jaish-e-Mohammed has admitted that India attacked its centre in Balakot in Pakistan but claimed that were no casualties in the air strikes that raised tensions between the neighbours to their highest in years.
The Islamist group has also lashed out at Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan for ’embarrassing the Muslim Ummah by releasing the Indian pilot’ and exhorted Pakistanis to join the jihad in Kashmir.
India said its warplanes struck a militant training camp inside Pakistan on February 26, and killed a “very large number of fighters”.
The assertion was met with a vehement denial by Pakistan, with its prime minister, Imran Khan, insisting there was no proof to substantiate India’s claims. Pakistan officials also denied there had been casualties.
But an audio tape with words voiced by Maulana Masood Azhar’s brother now stands to verify what the Indian Air Force (IAF) has been saying all this while.
A journalist, Taha Siddiqui, on Saturday tweeted a clip from the above-mentioned audio tape — with translation — in which the Jaish-e-Mohammed leader can be clearly heard saying the Madrasa was struck down by Indian fighter planes.
The full confession address of Maulana Ammar, younger brother of Maulana Masood Azhar, is 14 minutes 32 seconds long. Siddiqui’s tweet has a recording of about a minute and 51 seconds — but has the most substantial part.
In the tape, Maulana Ammar is giving a sermon in which he accepts Indian planes targetted their centre in Balakot. He goes on to criticise Imran Khan for releasing IAF braveheart Abhinandan Varthaman — who was captured in a squirmish that happened a day after the airstrike.
He says, “Imran Khan has caused us embarassment by releasing the Indian pilot. We won’t forgive him.”
Maulana Ammar, in the tape, further calls on Pakistanis to join him in spreading jihad. He is also heard saying “India will have to pay back for this action.”
While it was intially reported that a Jaish headquarters was struck down, Indian officials said the raid destroyed a training camp of JeM, the militant group behind a suicide attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama that killed over 40 CRPF personnel.
It has also been reported that villagers near the town of Balakot in Northeast Pakistan were shaken out of their sleep by what seemed like an earthquake in the early hours of February 26, only discovering once dawn broke that there had been an Indian airstrike on their neighbourhood.
A resident told Reuters there was a nearby madrasa run by Jaish.
India’s foreign secretary, in a media briefing, said a very large number of JEM terrorists were eliminated.
The airstrike near Balakot, a town 50 km (30 miles) from the frontier, was the deepest cross-border raid launched by India since the last of its three wars with Pakistan in 1971.
Pakistani officials dismissed the claims, saying the Indian aircraft had dropped their bombs in a wooded area, causing no damage or casualties.
JeM is a primarily anti-India group that forged ties with al-Qaeda and has been on a UN terrorist list since 2001. In December 2001, Jaish fighters, along with members of another Pakistan-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, attacked India’s parliament, which almost led to a fourth war.
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