News Desk |
The passing days bring with them one proof after another of the flimsy scripts that the Indian government has used against Pakistan after the now-suspicious Pulwama attack. After the Indian government gallantly claimed that it had done a “surgical strike” against a “terror camp” in Balakot and somehow managed a body count of 350 people, local and international media had jumped to the location to tell the world that the jets had, in fact, hit trees.
An independent US satellite monitor has now provided high-resolution satellite images, reviewed by Reuters, showing that a madrassah, allegedly run by Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) in northeastern Pakistan appears to be still standing days after India claimed its warplanes had hit the Islamist group’s training camp on the site and killed a large number of militants.
The images produced by Planet Labs Inc, a San Francisco-based private satellite operator, show at least six buildings on the madrassa site on March 4, six days after the airstrike.
The Indian government had also claimed that it had downed an F-16 multi-role in the dogfight which resulted in the capture of Wing Commander Abhinandan. DG ISPR had refuted this claim by saying that no F-16s were scrambled in the defense.
Until now, no high-resolution satellite images were publicly available. But the images from Planet Labs, which show details as small as 72 cm (28 inches), offer a clearer look at the structures the Indian government claimed it had attacked.
The image is virtually unchanged from an April 2018 satellite photo of the facility. There are no distinguishable holes in the roofs of buildings, no signs of scorching, blown-out walls, displaced trees around the madrassa or other signs of an aerial attack.
The images cast further doubt on statements made over the last eight days by the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that the raids, early on February 26, had hit all the intended targets at the madrassa site near Jaba village and the town of Balakot in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Read more: Balakot airstrike: India’s failure at legal front?
India’s foreign and defense ministries did not reply to emailed questions sent in the past few days seeking comment on what is shown in the satellite images and whether they undermine its official statements on the airstrikes, reported Reuters.
The Indian government had also claimed that it had downed an F-16 multi-role in the dogfight which resulted in the capture of Wing Commander Abhinandan. DG ISPR had refuted this claim by saying that no F-16s were scrambled in the defense.
Read more: Evidence of Balakot strike causalities: Modi fails to silence opposition’s demands
To further weaken the Indian rhetoric, Indian media hysterically fabricated details of the so-called downing and said that the F-16 was flown by former Deputy Chief of Air Staff Air Marshal ® Waseem Ud Din’s son. The retired Air Marshal has no children in the armed forces, sources close to the family told GVS.