Cliff Notes
- The Jamia Ummul Qurah mosque in Muridke has been devastated by Indian missile strikes, resulting in civilian casualties and significant destruction, prompting emotional responses from local residents.
- While India claims the site is a terrorist base linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, locals assert it serves as a civilian complex, highlighting the ongoing tensions and differing narratives between the two nations.
- Diplomatic efforts from Iran, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia are underway to de-escalate the situation, but both India and Pakistan remain entrenched in their positions, risking further conflict.
The site targeted by deadly Indian missile strikes is a mass of rubble – and locals feel trapped | World News
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It is a mass of rubble. The doors and windows of Jamia Ummul Qurah mosque in Muridke were blown off and there are two huge holes in the ceiling.
Prayer books covered in debris rest on broken bricks and there’s bent metal hanging everywhere. On a thin table, you can see the remnants of what caused this devastation – missiles launched by India that killed three men.
Muridke is a small city of about 250,000 people. It’s about 20 miles from Lahore, the provincial capital of Punjab, which borders India. Locals here feel trapped in the crosshairs of the Indian military.
India believes this is the site of a terror base. Locals insist it’s a civilian complex of schools, houses, a hospital and a large seminary, with more than 3,000 students.
In recent years, the Pakistani government took control of the complex. But India has long believed it’s the home of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) – a militant group designated as a terror organisation by the UN and accused of involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack.
Hanzla Ammad, who lives nearby, says many people fled the area a week before the strike, after India claimed LeT was behind the devastating attack on tourists in Kashmir that killed 26 people.
That, claims Hanzla, is just “propaganda” and “India hasn’t provided a single bit of proof”.
Like many left behind, Hanzla wants to see India pay.
“It violated international order and killed civilians, and Pakistan has the right to defend itself now,” he tells Sky News.
India has spent the week insisting it’s only targeting “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan.
Islamabad flatly rejects that. It also denies any links to the attack on tourists in Kashmir that led to the devastation you can see in places like Muridke.
The Pakistani government has for decades been accused of supporting and financing militants. But Hanzla says his country is now the “victim”.
Walking outside among the ruins of the building I meet 26-year-old Usama Sarwar. He’s quietly incredulous.
“This is a matter of national dignity for Pakistan. Our elders, our army, our government look compromised,” he declares.
All-out war is not what he wants. “But right now it looks like it might happen.”
Both sides have a great deal to lose. And there’s been a flurry of diplomacy in the past 48 hours, with Iran, the UAE and Saudi Arabia pushing hard to walk India and Pakistan into a safer space.
The tit-for-tat has lasted longer than some hoped. The more it goes on, the more room there is for miscalculation.
This may be a decades-long conflict. But this time the rest of the world seems less involved. And neither neighbour in this protracted conflict seems satisfied enough to walk away just yet. They may want to feel they can claim victory.
The question is, what does that now look like?