New Delhi: The so-called “religious campus” once loudly proclaimed as Jamia Masjid Markaz Subhan Allah in Bahawalpur has quietly vanished from digital maps because the buildings behind the name no longer exist. Once a breeding ground for Jaish-e-Mohammed’s (JeM) terror ecosystem, the 18-acre complex now sits in eerie silence.
Google Maps, known for trailing behind real-world events, has marked the site “Permanently Closed”, India Today reported. Even algorithms seem to acknowledge what Islamabad will not – the terror camp is gone. And it was India that erased it.
This wasn’t just a symbolic pin on the map. It was a direct hit. The location, barely 100 kilometers from the India-Pakistan border, was believed to be JeM’s core indoctrination centre where sermons met submachine guns and theology got rewritten with bullets.
Operating under the Al-Rahmat Trust, the group’s charitable front, the campus doubled as a training ground, a fund collection point and a launchpad for cross-border terror.
But after the gruesome Pahalgam attack in May, India launched Operation Sindoor, a precision military retaliation that went far beyond border skirmishes. Among the nine major targets hit deep inside Pakistani territory, Markaz Subhan Allah took a direct blow. Ten members of JeM founder Masood Azhar’s family reportedly perished in the airstrikes – something the group reluctantly confirmed later. As for Azhar himself, his whereabouts remain a mystery.
Western agencies had picked up whispers before the strike. A Reuters report dated May 9 suggested the campus had been “emptied of students in recent days”. It seems even Pakistan’s deep state realised what was coming. What they did not expect was India’s resolve.
Masood Azhar and his inner circle had stayed behind, either too arrogant or too convinced of their impunity. Operation Sindoor proved both assumptions fatal.
What Pakistan sold to the world as a mosque was in fact a militant mini-city. Locals referred to it as the Usman-o-Ali Campus, a code name with multiple entrances and layered perimeters. Inside were combat training zones, lecture halls for radicalization and stockpiles of weapons. Since 2012, it had grown from a humble seminary into a well-oiled machine of jihadist export.
But Islamabad still insists this was all “religious education”. If so, the curriculum included grenade drills and martyrdom manifestos. Some education system.
When Google Maps Tells the Truth Pakistan Won’t
Normally, it takes years for places to be updated on Google Maps, especially in countries with minimal transparency. But when local Pakistani users began reporting the site as closed, Google had enough data to update the status. No reopening. No disclaimer. Just “Permanently Closed”.
Think about it – a terror training camp so synonymous with jihad that even a billion-dollar tech company finally said, “Yup, this one is done.”
In addition punishing those who carried out the deadly terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22, killing 26 innocent tourists, the aim of Operation Sindoor was sending out a message that you can rebrand terror as faith, you can use charities as camouflage, if your soil hosts murderers, it will be turned into a graveyard.
India’s latest doctrine is surgical, strategic and unapologetic. There is no “plausible deniability” when an 18-acre complex disappears overnight.
As always, Pakistan’s official reaction was denial. No acknowledgment of the strike. No confirmation of deaths. Just the same old press briefings blaming “external forces”. But the closed sign on Google and the charred remains of Markaz Subhan Allah say otherwise.
While the Pakistani government blames Indian “aggression”, citizens are left to guess why one of their most prominent “mosques” now looks like a crater. And why no one is showing up for Friday prayers anymore.
One of the most dangerous terror launchpads in South Asia didn’t just vanish. It was shut down mid-sentence. By force. By proof. And now, by Google.
