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Aerial offensive also sought to avenge all the prior terror attacks in Pulwama, Uri and even Mumbai by targeting Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Hijbul Mujahideen terror camps
In the selection of nine targets of terrorist camps operating in Pakistan occupied Jammu and Kashmir (PoJK) and Pakistan for counter-offensive, India has shown its capacity to strike at significantly notorious camps in Bahawalpur, Sialkot, Sheikhupura districts of Punjab province which is the geographical indicator of political and strategic power enjoyed by the ruling elite of the neighbouring country.
Besides that, the aerial offensive also sought to avenge all the prior terror attacks in Pulwama, Uri and even Mumbai by targeting Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Hijbul Mujahideen terror camps, said security sources.
The proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba’s offshoot, The Resistance Front, had claimed responsibility for gunning down 26 tourists in Pahalgam on the basis of Hindu religion but later retracted to retain an element of deniability in tracing the attack back to Islamabad.
Security sources described the early morning military action as the biggest so far in terms of planning, scale and execution as it went many notches beyond the single Balakot airstrike post Pulwama suicide attack that left 40 CRPF personnel dead on February 14, 2019.
Azhar kin killed
Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar issued a statement in Urdu, saying that 10 members of his family were killed in India’s targeted airstrikes under Operation Sindoor to avenge the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack.
India’s most wanted terrorist, Azhar, arrested in Jammu and Kashmir in 1994 and released after the Air India IC 814 hijack, said those killed in the strike on JeM headquarters, Jamia Masjid Subhan Allah in Bahawalpur, included his elder sister, her husband, a nephew and his wife, a niece, and five children from the extended family.
The Jaish-run terror infrastructure, spread across 15 acres in Bahawalpur is located along NH-5, between Karachi-Torkham highway which is about 100 km from the international boundary. It is also associated with terrorists planning and training ahead of Pulwama attack, and is among the four camps targeted in the military action, as per the dossier prepared by the security forces of the 21 terrorists camps.
The JeM operates another Tehra Kalan or Sarjal Camp in Shakargarh tehsil of Narowal district, located 6 km from the IB opposite Samba-Kathua sector of Jammu and Kashmir. Indian Army Colonel Quereshi in her official briefing of the aerial assault in Pakistan, along with Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, and IAF Wing Commander Vyomika Singh, Wednesday morning said terrorists who killed four personnel of J&K police in March 2025 were trained and launched from this camp.
Sources said the rationale behind the attack on Mehmoona Joya terror facility, located in Sialkot, a part of which has been subsumed in Narowal district, was to globally demonstrate that Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) which controls the camp, is not an outfit per se of local Kashmiris as Pakistan has been projecting for decades to give it homegrown flavour to their proxy war in India.
Major terrorist attacks including at the Pathankkot Air Force base was planned and directed from this facility besides it commander Mohammed Irfan Khan alias Irfan Tanda is accused of carrying out series of blasts on January 26, 1995 in Maulana Azad Stadium, security sources said.
The Markaz Taiba camp, Muridke, Punjab, was included into the dismantling operation as it has been the headquarters of internationally banned LeT, led by another most wanted terrorist Hafiz Syed. The Mumbai terror attack in 2008 was planned in this camp and terrorists Ajmal Kasab, who was captured live and later hanged to death, and David Coleman, had received their training there, Col Quereshi told journalists.
Launch pads
The rest five of the nine camps destroyed were in PoJK, Sawai Nala Camp and Syedna Belal Camp (both in Muzaffarabad), Gulpur Camp and Abbas Camp (both in Kotli), and Barnala Camp in Bhimber. Â
They too have been either training or launch pads for terrorists to strike in Jammu and Kashmir. Like Sawal Nala Camp in Muzaffarabad, which is about 30 km from Line of Control in Tangdhar sector is a key training facility of Lashkar. The attack on civilians and security forces in Sonmarg on October 20, 2024, and in Gulmarg on October 24, 2024, were carried out by modules linked to this camp, the woman officer said.
Published on May 7, 2025
This article first appeared on The Hindu Business Line
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