Tensions are running high between India and Pakistan following a suicide attack on an Indian paramilitary convoy last month, which killed 42 soldiers in Indian-administered Kashmir.
The suicide attack, the deadliest in 30 years of Kashmir conflict and claimed by Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM), escalated into a massive standoff between the two South Asian nuclear powers.
On February 26, 12 days after the JeM attack, Indian fighter jets bombed inside Pakistani territory, claiming to have hit a camp belonging to the armed group and eliminating “many rebels”.
An infuriated Islamabad, which denied any casualties in the Indian bombing, launched its own incursion across the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border between the two countries in the disputed Kashmir region.
The dogfight resulted in the capture of a downed Indian air force pilot, who was released on March 1 as part of a “peace gesture” by Pakistan.
Meanwhile, violence and deaths continue in Kashmir, the Himalayan territory claimed in full by the two nuclear-armed rivals.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has said no armed group would be allowed to operate on Pakistani soil and carry out attacks abroad.
“This government will not allow Pakistan’s land to be used for any kind of outside terrorism,” Khan said while addressing a public rally in southern Pakistan.
“We will not allow any militant group to function in our country now.”
Pakistan began a crackdown against armed groups this week amid growing international pressure in the wake of a bombing in India-administered Kashmir by Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed.
Days after India said its warplanes hit a Jaish-e-Mohammed training camp on the site of a religious school in northeastern Pakistan, killing a large number of fighters, the site appears undamaged and deserted.
A Reuters news agency team saw the madrasa, or religious school, on Thursday from 100m away at the site of a crater where two Indian missiles struck.
The building itself, located on top of a hill and surrounded by pine trees, did not show any signs of damage or activity, the news agency said.
High-resolution satellite images reviewed by Reuters on Wednesday also showed the JeM madrasa appears to be still standing and virtually unchanged from an April 2018 satellite photo of the facility.
Reuters says it was not allowed to access the madrasa site from a different road as Pakistani security officials cited security concerns for keeping the area clear.
Pakistan has intensified its crackdown against hardliner fighters, with the government announcing it has taken control of 182 religious schools and detained more than 100 people as part of its push against banned groups.
The interior ministry said the move was part of a long-planned drive, not a response to Indian anger over what New Delhi calls Islamabad’s failure to rein in fighter groups operating on Pakistani soil.
Provincial governments have “taken in their control management and administration of 182 seminaries (madaris),” Pakistan’s interior ministry said in a statement, referring to religious schools.
