Yesterday was an eye opener for me on what we call as 'news and media reports'. Yesterday was significant in many other different ways too; but am not getting into the same. Yesterday was 26 Feb, 2019.
There was a major national event that happened and the whole nation was tracking the same carefully. But what was presented to us as 'news' was really shocking. Wikipedia says 'News is information about current events'. It says nothing about whether the information has to be right or not. So can false information be also called 'news'? Oh, i forgot-- That is fake news! Then what about unverified, unsupported, proof-less information? It's neither news nor fake news. That is the grey area where majority of Indian media was treading yesterday. The narrative changes based on which channel/ newspaper you are tuned in. This is not generally abnormal as slight variations in reports do happen across different platforms. But the variance would be minimal and mostly insignificant. But yesterday's 'news' showed the highest amount of variance (in pure statistical terms) that i have ever seen in recent times. One incident; One fact; Many versions...................
- BBC - Indian govt said strikes targeted a training camp of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) group in Balakot. Pakistan said its jets had forced back the Indian planes and denied there were any casualties. What does India say happened? ------- How has Pakistan responded?------
- Reuters - India said its warplanes killed “a very large number” of fighters when they struck a militant training camp inside Pakistan on Tuesday, raising the risk of conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours, although Pakistan officials denied there had been casualties.A senior Indian government source said that 300 militants had been killed in the strikes and that the warplanes had ventured as far as 80 km (50 miles) inside Pakistan. But no evidence was provided to back up the claims of casualties.Pakistani officials dismissed the Indian claims, saying the Indian aircraft had dropped their bombs in a wooded area, causing no damage or casualties.Villagers near the town of Balakot were shaken from their sleep by the air strikes. They said only one person was wounded in the attack and they knew of no fatalities.From what villagers could see, the Indian attack had missed its target as the bombs dropped exploded about a kilometre away from the madrasa. “We saw fallen trees and one damaged house, and four craters where the bombs had fallen,” said Mohammad Ajmal, a 25-year-old who visited the site.“We couldn’t tell what had happened. It was only in the morning that we figured out it was an attack,” he told Reuters after visiting the site, in a wooded hilltop area.
- Aljazeera - Indian fighter jets on Tuesday crossed into Pakistani territory, conducting what the foreign ministry in New Delhi termed a "non-military pre-emptive action" against armed group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), dramatically escalating tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours weeks after a suicide attack in the disputed Kashmir region. Pakistan reported the Indian airspace incursion, with military spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor saying its air force jets were scrambling to respond, forcing the Indian aircraft to "release [their] payload in haste while escaping".Indian Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale, however, asserted that the jets had hit their target, and that "a very large number of JeM terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of jihadis who were being trained for fidayeen action were eliminated".Local residents and journalists in Pakistan told Al Jazeera that the sounds of aircraft and an explosion were heard in the Jaba area of Mansehra district, located about 60km from the LoC
- NewYork Times - Indian warplanes conducted airstrikes in Pakistan on Tuesday, Pakistani officials said, in an escalation of tensions between the nuclear-armed nations after a suicide bombing against Indian troops in the disputed Kashmir region this month.It was the first time that Indian aircraft had crossed the Kashmir Line of Control to strike in decades. But it was unclear what, if anything, the attack jets hit on the Pakistani side, raising the possibility that India was making a calculated bet to assuage public anger but minimize the risk of a major Pakistani military response.The Indian Foreign Ministry confirmed in a news briefing that a strike had occurred but would give no further details.
- The Indian Express - Less than a fortnight after the single bloodiest attack in Jammu and Kashmir in the last three decades of militancy, India on Tuesday conducted air strikes deep inside Pakistan, the first time after the 1971 war that it has hit targets in the country. Announcing that India had struck the “biggest training camp” of the Jaish-e-Mohammad in Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday, in which “a very large number” of JeM terrorists and their trainers were “eliminated”, the NDA government, effectively, drew a new red line in its strategic calculus with Pakistan. By striking terrorist camps about 80 km away from the Line of Control in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, India chose “non-military” targets, the Jaish-e-Mohammed-run terror camps, and justified the strikes as “pre-emptive” since terrorists, Delhi said, were plotting another attack
- The Hindu - Twelve days after the Pulwama attack, the Indian Air Force bombed the Jaish-e-Mohammad’s “biggest” terror-training camp in Pakistan’s Balakot early on Tuesday. The operation was carried out by 12 Mirage-2000 fighter jets, which unleashed five one-tonne bombs on the camp, based 70 km inside the Line of Control (LoC), in the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakthunkhwa. Senior officials citing intelligence inputs said the JeM facility was particularly crowded with 200-325 militants as many had abandoned launch pads and training camps closer to the LoC after the Pulwama attack in the expectation that India would not target Balakot. Defence officials said the Mirage fighters took off from the Gwalior airbase at approximately 3 a.m., backed by aircraft from other bases, including Sirsa, Bathinda and Agra. Announcing the strikes, the government said it was a “non-military, pre-emptive” counter-terror operation against imminent threats from the JeM.
- India Today - Indian Air Force Mirage 2000 jets crossed the Line of Control and then went into Pakistan to destroy terrorist training camps of Jaish-e-Mohammed led by Masood Azhar. A large training camp was flattened in Balakot in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. 12 Mirage 2000 jets took part in the operation. They dropped 1,000-kg laser-guided bombs to destroy at least six terrorist terror camps inside Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and Balakot. The aircraft crossed over at 3 am even as Pakistani armed forces were on high alert. The Indian formation managed to avoid detection. When Pakistan Air Force noticed the bombarding, it scrambled its jets but the formation was not easy to tackle for them. By the time, more aircraft took off from Abbottabad, the operation was over and Indian jets had safely returned home. The Balakot bombing took just about 90 seconds and the entire operation was over in 21 minutes. Government sources estimate the number of terrorists killed to be between 200 and 300. Yousuf Azhar, one of the hijackers of IC-814, may be one of those killed. Yousuf, is a brother-in-law of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar, who was released after IC-814 hijacking and went on the form the terrorist group. India said this was not a revenge attack but a pre-emptive strike led by intelligence inputs and was 'non-military' in nature. A non-military preemptive strike technically means the operation targeted no military installation.Pakistan pre-empted India's announcement by claiming Pakistan Air Force had chased away Indian Air Force intruders who then unloaded their payload in haste, damaging some trees. Pakistan media also denied any such strike and said that only person suffered minor injuries in Balakot
- ANI News - Sending out a huge message, India on Tuesday carried out air strikes deep inside Pakistan, destroying major camp of JeM and eliminating a "large number" of terrorists, including top commanders, of the terror group. In the swift operation, launched around 3.30am and completed within 12 minutes, 12 mirage-2000 fighter jets pounded the training center, housing around 300 terrorists, in Balakot area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province with six bombs while SU-30 combat aircraft maintained air superiority to ward off any retaliation by PAF, sources said. The casuality figure of the terrorists is very high as the JeM had shifted its entire cadre to this camp from the launching pads along the LOC, fearing surgical strikes-type response from India in the aftermath of Pulwama attack, sources said about first such action by India. A large number of Jaish terrorists, including top commanders, trainers and those terrorists who were to be 'fidayeen' were eliminated in the 'non military' air strike, Foreign secretarty Gokhale told the media while officially disclosing information about the air strike, hours after the action. Sources said the camp housed an ammunition dump having more than 200 AK Rifles, uncounted round of hand grenades, explosives, and detonators and it was blown up in the strike. Among the targets were Maulana Ammar, who is associated with Afghanistan and Kashmir Operations, and Maulana Talfa Saif, brother of Maulana Masoor Azhar and head of suicide bomber preparation wing, the intelligence sources said.
- Republic TV headlines - India has struck Pakistan and we have struck them hard. There were 3 strikes - Balakot, Muzzafarabad and Chakothi . 16 fighter jets were used, 6 terror camps were targeted, over 245 terrorists killed in 17 minutes; figure can go up to 345, terror bombed, burned and buried. Pakistan army says it was too dark and their jets were too fast. (*There were many further details they had given on TV including the photos of the 'eliminated' terrorists)
