A mosque in the main city of Pakistan-administered Kashmir stood half collapsed as daylight broke on Wednesday, its aged caretaker killed in a strike by India in the darkness.
It was one of six sites struck by New Delhi in what it said was retribution for a militant attack on its side of divided Kashmir last month, a deadly strike that it accuses Islamabad of backing.
“There were terrible sounds at night, there was panic among the people,” said Muhammed Salman, who lives next door to the destroyed Bilal Mosque in Muzzaffarabad.
Several houses were damaged in the attack and the neighbouring school was closed on Wednesday, like all others across the region and in neighbouring Punjab province, after it was also hit.
“The children are very scared. We couldn’t leave our place during the night but now we are moving to the house of our relatives,” said 52-year-old mother Jamila Bibi.
Torn copies of the Koran were carefully collected by worshippers from among the debris of iron roof sheets, collapsed wooden beams and metal rods at the Bilal Mosque.
United Nations military observers arrived at the site to inspect it on Wednesday.
Nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan, rivals since their painful partition nearly 80 years ago, have exchanged heated threats and border gunfire for days since the April 22 attack on civilians in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir.
India’s strikes overnight were expected and, according to its army, targeted “terrorist sites”.
Pakistan responded with heavy artillery fire along the de facto border in Kashmir and said it had also shot down five jets inside India.
The South Asian countries reported around 40 people were killed in total.
“We are moving to a safer place… We are homeless now,” said 24-year-old Tariq Mir, who lives near the Bilal Mosque and was struck by shrapnel.
The 70-year-old caretaker of the mosque was buried on Wednesday in a funeral attended by more than 600 people, an AFP journalist witnessed.
In Bahawalpur, in Punjab near the Indian border, Ali Muhammed was also jolted awake.
“We were sleeping when we heard an explosion,” he said, standing among dozens of onlookers, most still on their scooters, observing the damage to the city’s Subhan mosque that was also hit.
Indian intelligence agencies say the mosque is linked to groups close to the jihadist movement Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is suspected of carrying out the April 22 attack that killed 26 people.
Repeating rhetoric broadcast daily on television, radio, and social media by the military, Ali Muhammed said: “We know how to respond… we are not weak.”
“We are a nuclear power.”
