India strikes alleged headquarters of militant groups in Pakistan’s heartland

By Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam and Mubasher Bukhari

MURIDKE, Pakistan (Reuters) – Video footage from the early hours of Wednesday exhibits a vibrant flash from the residential Islamic seminary exterior Bahawalpur in central Pakistan as India attacked its neighbour in response to the killing of Indian vacationers in Kashmir.

The seminary was emptied of its college students in latest days as hypothesis grew that may be focused by India, however the household of Masood Azhar, founding father of the Jaish-e-Mohammed Islamist militant group, was nonetheless there, in response to the group.

Ten of Azhar’s family members had been amongst 13 individuals killed within the strike, together with ladies and youngsters, the Pakistani navy stated. Hundreds of individuals turned out for his or her funerals at a sports activities stadium later within the day, shouting “Allah Akbar”, or God is Nice, and different non secular chants.

“(Indian Prime Minister Narendra) Modi’s brutality has damaged all norms,” the group stated in an announcement. “The grief and shock are indescribable”. It stated that 5 of these killed had been kids and the others included Azhar’s sister and her husband. It didn’t reply to a request for touch upon why the household was nonetheless on the website.

Azhar, who has not been seen for years, and his brother, Abdul Rauf Asghar, deputy head of the group, didn’t seem to have attended the funeral prayers. The street to the positioning was cordoned off after the strike.

Additional north, round half an hour after midnight, 4 Indian missiles hit a sprawling complicated in Muridke over six minutes, an area authorities official stated.

The assault demolished a mosque and adjoining administration constructing and buried three individuals within the rubble.

An indication exterior describes the positioning as a authorities well being and academic complicated, however India says it’s related to militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Delhi and Washington blame LeT for the 2008 assault on the Indian metropolis of Mumbai that killed greater than 160 individuals. LeT, which has has denied duty for that assault, is banned.

The assault left different buildings within the complicated untouched. A neighborhood official stated that usually there have been as much as 3,500 employees and college students on the website, however nearly everybody had been evacuated in latest days as they feared it might turn into a goal.

Hafiz Saeed, chief of LeT and its successor organizations, is in a Pakistani jail since being convicted in 2020, on terror financing prices. He says his community, which spans 300 seminaries and faculties, hospitals, a publishing home and ambulance providers, has no ties to militant teams.

Delhi stated it had performed pinpoint strikes on the 2 headquarters of its militant adversaries, a part of what it stated had been 9 “terrorist camps” focused.

“Over the past three many years Pakistan has systematically constructed terror infrastructure,” it stated in a briefing on the assaults.

Pakistan stated India had hit six websites, killing 26 individuals and wounding 46, all “harmless civilians”.

Officers and specialists stated India’s assault on its neighbour, its most vital in many years, fulfilled a long-cherished aim, however Islamabad warned that it might hit again.

The battle between India and Pakistan has been confined in latest many years principally to the disputed mountainous area of Kashmir. However the air strikes within the cities of Bahawalpur and Muridke had been seen in Islamabad as a serious escalation.

India stated seven of its targets had been utilized by Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, each Islamist teams designated “terrorist” organisations by the U.N. Safety Council. India launched the assaults in response to the killing of 26 individuals, principally vacationers in Indian Kashmir final month.

Jaish says that it carries out instructional and charity work in Pakistan and its militant actions are solely in India. Delhi says that it runs coaching camps in Pakistan, in addition to indoctrination faculties, and that it launches militants into India.

For many years Hindu-majority India has accused Pakistan of supporting Islamist militants in assaults on Indian pursuits, particularly in Kashmir. Pakistan denies such help and in flip accuses India of supporting separatist rebels in Pakistan, which New Delhi denies.

(Writing by Saeed Shah; modifying by Philippa Fletcher)