Jammu: At around 8 pm Friday, it was lights out across Jammu city. Barely a few minutes later, red flashes appeared on the northeastern side of the city, followed by streaks of light. A group of staffers and some journalists gathered on the lawns of a hotel here, viewing the action playing out in the distance. This was the opposite of what was witnessed the previous night when a complete blackout followed drone attacks by Pakistan.
On Friday, the intensity of red flares and flashes increased with time as India’s air defence grid tirelessly thwarted every attempt.
“We are in a 50 km radius of Pakistan’s Sialkot and the border is just about 30 km from the city. The explosions could be from the borders,” Kaushal, a resident, told ThePrint.
The landscape is dark but red lights are peppered across the city skies. In the distance, faint sound of explosions could be heard—a sound that at any other time might easily be mistaken for approaching thunder before the first drops of rain.
This is the second consecutive night of an aerial assault over Jammu, one of the bigger cities in India’s northernmost region.
Most of the residents were given one set of instructions: stay indoors and turn the lights off.
People from the region are no strangers to the sounds of explosions coming from afar. But this time the action is right above their homes in the heart of Jammu. Similar drone strikes and interceptions played out over Samba, Ferozpur and other places.
“… this shelling, firing …. we have seen this all our lives. We had to leave our villages in 1965, 1975, 1999, 2001 …. but this time it’s followed us to Jammu,” said Mangal Das, a 70-year-old farmer. He, and others from his village and neighbouring ones have been residing in a campsite on the outskirts of Jammu.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in a post on X at 8.32 PM said he could hear “intermittent sounds of blasts, probably heavy artillery” from where he was in Jammu.
Earlier in the day, Omar too made the six-hour drive from Srinagar to take stock of the situation. He visited several camps and lodgement centres in Jammu and Samba districts.
“If innocent people of ours are harmed, the nation reserves every right to defend itself in any way. It is Pakistan which must stop aggression for peace to prevail. If they keep on taking the offensive, they are sure to suffer. Our forces are fully capable of giving a proportionate response,” Omar said in a statement.
This is a developing story
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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