In a purported audio message, a senior Jaish-e-Mohammad leader, identified as Maulana Ummar, the brother of Jaish chief Masood Azhar, says that Indian fighter jets hit "a school where students were being trained to understand jihad" in the Balakot airstrike.
India has claimed that the February 26 cross-LoC airstrike demolished the largest Jaish-e-Mohammad training camp in Balakot.
However, Pakistan has maintained the Indian airstrikes did not hit anything, except for destroying a patch of trees on a hilltop near Balakot.
Outlook cannot vouch for the veracity of the audio or the claim that the voice is that of Maulana Ummar.
The audio has been tweeted by a Pakistani journalist living in exile in France.
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“The enemy announced a war by crossing its borders to enter an Islamic country and launching bombs on Muslim schools. So, raise your weapons and show them if jihad is still an obligation or a duty,” the man is hearing saying in the recording, which officials believe was made two days after the Balakot air strike and played out as an address to militants at the Madrassah Sanan bin Salma in Peshawar,
“Let me remind you that the Indian aircrafts did not bomb the safe house of any agency, they didn’t attack any headquarters, they didn’t attack the meeting points of agencies (JeM), they attacked the schools where students were being trained to understand jihad better and vowed to help “oppressed” Kashmiris. By entering our territories and attacking our schools, India has ensured the beginning of jihad against them,” he is heard saying.
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Indian Foreign Secretary VK Gokhale, while announcing the Indian air strikes, said India had undertaken the action in order to pre-empt further fidayeen style attacks on India.
New Delhi conducted the airstrike in Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Feb 26, 12 days after the Pulwama attack in which 40 Indian paramilitary personnel were killed in a suicide attack by a Jaish operative.
