Cited below in detail, to avoid allegation of mis-presentation, is the news item that found front-page space in the Indian Express, to day.

It took seven days to cook it and yet it is not fit for consumption by anyone not as disoriented as the newspaper, I earlier rated above many others.

My problem is, are we passing through a crisis in which the sources of our information are being scorched by the sources themselves in their nervousness to do just the opposite in order to keep them wet? If my apprehensions are correct, it is more unfortunate than unpleasant results of win-and-lose game of politicians. Better we go through the news before you judge me as well as my findings:
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[[Heard huge explosion, soldiers evacuated us: Jaish madrasa student in Balakot told relative
This is the first direct account to emerge from Madrasa Taleem-ul-Quran, a prominent Jaish-e-Mohammad seminary in the Balakot area — the target of the February 26 IAF strike — located on top of a ridge called Jabha Top.
The Indian Express has learnt this from a relative of a student present in he madrasa at the time.This is the first direct account to emerge from Madrasa Taleem-ul-Quran, a prominent Jaish-e-Mohammad seminary in the Balakot area — the target of the February 26 IAF strike — located on top of a ridge called Jabha Top.
The soldiers had been providing security to the Jaish facility for a week or so before the strike, the relative said.
As narrated by the student to his family members, it was still dark on the morning of February 26 when he and some others who were sleeping in the same room were woken up by a “massive exploding” sound.
“The sound was not far away, it was quite close,” the relative told The Indian Express, recalling the student’s account.
They woke up in panic but they heard nothing again and went back to sleep. “They thought unka veham hoga (it must have been their imagination). Or that perhaps it was an earthquake tremor. Then they heard nothing more and went back to bed”.
When they woke up again — the relative did not know when but said it must have been for or before the fajr prayers, the first of the day — there were soldiers asking them to leave the place.
“Fauji unko kisi aur jagah le gaye (The soldiers took them to another location),” the relative said but did not know where they were evacuated. The students were kept there “for two or three days”.
“He said there were quite a lot of people at the madrasa but not all of them went to the safe house. It was him and some others of the same age group. He does not know what happened to the others or where the explosion took place,” the relative said.
The student told his family members that soldiers had been posted at the madrasa a few days before this incident took place.
“He said fauji had come to provide security to the madrasa because photos of the madrasa got leaked out,” the relative said.
After two or three days in the safe house, the boys were asked to leave for their respective homes.
“He is determined to return to the madrasa. Everyone is telling him to get married and stay back but he says he wants to go back to the madrasa,” the relative said.

On Saturday, The Indian Express reported that agencies have radar imagery to show that four buildings in the Jaish premises were hit in the strike, but limitations of technical intelligence and lack of ground intelligence at this point make any assessment of terrorists killed in the attack “purely speculative”.]]
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MY OBJECTIONS ARE AS BELOW:
1. Why a paper, so rigorous in fact finding as to afford to be discourteously skeptic about the veracity of the statement by the Chief of Air-Marshall, did not even note the following discrepancies in the story:
a. How could the Indian Express identify and approach the relative? Any connection with militants? Of course no, it was the relative or the prop raised as a relative approached the Indian Express? But even so why could he pick this very news paper to give it space and that too on front page making it more genuine than the accurate and most candid statement by the reticent Air Chief? Unawares the paper provided an evidence that it is being run on sources inimical to Indian interests.
a. How could all the students being trained in war-tricks, rise at the huge sound and afford to sleep at the time of early morning prayer?
b. Even if they thought that it was an earthquake, could one sleep so peacefully?
c. How none of the students went out to find what has happened?
d. How all of them thought and agreed that it was an earthquake unless the tremor was felt by them?
e. Why none mentioned even of a jerk?
Why the soldiers were required to salvage them?
(In the rumor and panic-ridden atmosphere when it was thought prudent to send them back to their parents at the earliest, why did the military keep them for seven days before sending them back to their parents.)
f. In a factual story there was no scope for the statement that their parents want them to get married but they are determined to go back. It has been added to show that the attack has neither demoralized Pakistan as a nation nor the militants as a cadre, which conversely confirms that the losses were heavy, demoralizing, but even so there were a few survivors rescued by the Pakistani army.

2. The total number of the inmates of the camp, the total number of survivals in this story and the admission by the surviving students that there were a large number of students at that camp and they did not see them in rescue camp fits so neatly with the figure given by Shah and jeered by others that it gives the impression that even The Indian Express is toeing the BJP line.
Who is winning or losing is not our concern, but authenticity of the sources of information concerns us all. Their failure expands the space for rumors and rumors have gathered enormous strength with growing social media.