NEW DELHI: The Indian defence establishment on Friday said it had synthetic aperture radar (SAR) pictures to buttress its contention of having effectively hit the Jaish-e-Mohammed ’s terror training facility at Balakot in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan in the February 26 air strikes.This came after a few independent satellite imagery experts raised doubts whether the Mirage-2000 fighters had actually managed to hit the terror facility on the ‘Jaba Top’ hillock. They claimed that while there was little evidence of damage to the facility in the satellite pictures, craters caused by bombs were visible in open areas around 150 to 200 metres from the barracks/buildings.Indian defence officials, however, rejected these reports. “The SAR films clearly show before and after pictures of the intended targets being hit . Its up to the government whether it wants to release them or not. Pakistan, of course, has also worked swiftly to repair the damage to the site,” an official said.Officials refused to specify the platform used to capture the SAR pictures. The Mirage-2000s, which had fired long-range Spice-2000 precision-guided bombs and AGM-142 (Popeye-2) missiles after crossing the Line of Control, have electro-optical sensors but they could not have captured the imagery because it was cloudy during the pre-dawn strikes. The Sukhoi-30MKIs, which accompanied the Mirage-2000s for ‘air defence’, do have SARs for high-resolution ground mapping with the capability to penetrate clouds.Though the sprawling Balakot facility had over 300 terrorists at the time of the air strikes, as per intelligence, it is impossible to estimate the exact number of casualties. Describing the operation as a “non-military pre-emptive action”, foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale on that day had said “a very large number of JeM terrorists, trainers, senior commanders and groups of jihadis, who were being trained for fidayeen action, were eliminated”.On Thursday, IAF assistant chief of air staff (space and operations) R G K Kapoor had said, “There is fairly credible evidence with us which proves that there was damage to the camp. We hit the intended targets and caused the damage that was intended.“However, it will be premature to say what is the number of casualties we have been able to inflict on those camps and the number of deaths. Whatever we intended to destroy, we have got the results. Now it is up to the government and higher leadership as to when and how to give the evidence or not.”The IAF has already presented evidence to refute Pakistan’s claims that no F-16 fighters were used in its air intrusion on February 27. IAF had foiled the attack by the Pakistani fighters, which also include JF-17 and Mirage-5 attack jets, but the MiG-21 being flown by Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman was shot down after he had brought down an F-16 with a Vympel R-73 air-to-air missile.Read this story in Bengali