India and Pakistan exchanged heavy artillery along their contested frontier on Wednesday, after New Delhi launched missile strikes on its arch-rival in a major escalation between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
Dead were reported on both sides. Pakistan army chief said 26 civilians were killed and 46 were injured due to Indian army action. India said Pakistani artillery fire had killed three civilians along the de facto border in Kashmir.
New Delhi claimed it had carried out “precision strikes at terrorist camps” at nine sites in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and in Punjab state, days after it blamed Islamabad for a deadly attack on the Indian-run side of the disputed region.
The Indian army said “justice is served”, with New Delhi adding that its actions “have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature”.
Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif accused Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi of launching the strikes to “shore up” his domestic popularity, but said that Islamabad had struck back.
“The retaliation has already started”, Asif told AFP. “We won’t take long to settle the score.”
Fighter jets crashed
Three fighter jets crashed in India-administered Kashmir, four local government sources told Reuters, hours after India’s attacks on sites across the border.
A Pakistani military spokesperson told Reuters five Indian aircraft had been shot down. India later said that three of its fighter jets crashed.
In pictures: Metal debris lies on the ground in Wuyan in India-administered Kashmir's Pulwama district. Indian security sources say three Indian fighter jets crashed in Kashmir and a wounded pilot was taken to hospital
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‘Proportionate manner‘
Islamabad reported earlier that eight civilians — including one child — killed in the strikes, and AFP correspondents in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and Punjab heard several loud explosions.
In Muzaffarabad, the main city of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, troops cordoned off streets around a mosque Islamabad said was hit by a strike, with marks of explosions visible on the walls of several homes.
Shortly after, India’s army accused Pakistan of “indiscriminate” firing across the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border in Kashmir, with bursts of flame as shells landed, AFP reporters saw.
“Three innocent civilians lost their lives”, the Indian army said, adding it was responding in a “proportionate manner”.
‘Unprovoked’ and ‘cowardly’ attack
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, calling the Indian attack “unprovoked” and “cowardly”, said the “heinous act of aggression will not go unpunished.”
Diplomats have piled pressure on leaders to step back from the brink of war.
China expressed regret and concern over Indian strikes on Pakistan, urging both sides to show restraint in response to a major escalation between its nuclear-armed neighbours.
“The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan,” the spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement, adding that Guterres called for “maximum restraint.”
US President Donald Trump told reporters in Washington he hoped that the fighting “ends very quickly”.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has spoken to top security officials in both New Delhi and Islamabad since the strikes.
India was also set to hold several civil defence drills Wednesday, while schools in Pakistan’s Punjab were closed, local government officials said.
The strikes came just hours after Modi said that water flowing across India’s borders would be stopped. Pakistan had warned that tampering with the rivers that flow from India into its territory would be an “act of war”.
C. TRT World
