The Fog Of War

Truth is the ultimate casualty in every war.

- Hamid Mir

I saw the dead body of truth in the mountain village of Jabba, 25 kilometres from Balakot in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. This small village was bombed by the Indian Air Force in the early hours of February 26. The Indian government claimed that the target was a terrorist camp of the Jaish-e-Mohammad and that a large number of terrorists were killed. The weather was very bad that day and it was difficult to reach the bombing site because there is no road to Jabba Top.

I reached there the next morning by trekking for nearly three kilometres. I saw some destroyed trees. I was looking for destroyed buildings, but a local person told me that only one house was damaged and that, too, partly. Its owner Nooran Shah was slightly injured. I trekked further up and finally met Shah. I asked him about the casualties. He showed me a dead crow and said, “The only dead thing is this bird, no man was killed. I am the only person injured. But my home was damaged.”

Shah is a poor man. He said he did not know why he was targeted as he was not a terrorist. Soon, a few more locals came to greet me, and offered water and tea. I asked them to show me the destruction. They showed me four big craters. One was in a small cornfield and others were on a nearby hilltop. When I came down from the hilltop and said goodbye to Shah, he politely asked me, “Can you show this dead crow to the world and say this is what [Prime Minister] Modi achieved.” I filmed the dead crow. It was the dead body of truth.

Suddenly my phone rang. A colleague told me that the Pakistan Air Force had shot down two Indian fighter jets and taken into custody an Indian pilot.