India had struck the “biggest training camp” of the Jaish-e-Mohammad in Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in February.Nearly seven months after the Indian Air Force conducted airstrikes in Pakistan’s Balakot, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat on Monday said that the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terror facility has been reactivated. He also added that about 500 infiltrators were waiting to enter India.
EXPLAINED | History and geography of terror camp Balakot, recently reactivated by Pakistan
“Balakot has been reactivated by Pakistan very recently. That shows that Balakot has been affected. It had been damaged and destroyed. And that is why people have got away from there and now it has been reactivated,” he told reporters at the Officers Training Academy in Chennai.
In the aftermath of Pulwama attack, India had struck the “biggest training camp” of the JeM in Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in February, in which “a very large number” of JeM terrorists and their trainers were “eliminated.”
The training camp is described as being spread over six acres, with enough space to accommodate 600 cadre. The last “passing out” of militant recruits at Balakot, according to intelligence officials, was attended on April 1, 2018, by Mufti Abdul Rauf Asghar, the brother of Jaish founder Maulana Masood Azhar.
An Indian Air Force review of its February 26 airstrike on Balakot in Pakistan has shown that its aircraft hit five of six designated mean point of impact (DMPI) on buildings in the Jaish-e-Mohammad terror training complex.
Tensions between India and Pakistan heightened after India scrapped the special status granted to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370. While Pakistan has asked India to revoke its decision, New Delhi has firmly declined any interference calling it an “internal matter.”
