ShareMUZAFFARABAD/NEW DELHI: India and Pakistan exchanged heavy artillery fire along their contested frontier on Wednesday after New Delhi launched deadly missile strikes on its archrival, in the worst violence between the nuclear-armed neighbors in two decades. At least 43 deaths were reported, with Islamabad saying 31 civilians were killed by the Indian strikes and firing along the border, and New Delhi adding at least 12 dead from Pakistani shelling.
Kuwait followed with deep concern the recent escalation between India and Pakistan, said a statement by the foreign ministry on Wednesday. The ministry called on both countries to exercise restraint and seek diplomatic channels and peaceful means to end the situation, reaching a sustainable and comprehensive resolution to the situation that reinforces peace, security and stability in the region. The fighting came two weeks after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing an attack on the Indian-run side of disputed Kashmir, which Pakistan denied. The South Asian neighbors have fought multiple wars over the divided territory since they were carved out of the sub-continent at the end of British rule in 1947.
The Indian army said “justice is served”, reporting nine “terrorist camps” had been destroyed, with New Delhi adding that its actions “have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature”. Pakistan Defense Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif accused Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi of launching the strikes to “shore up” his domestic popularity, adding that Islamabad “won’t take long to settle the score”.
Pakistan military spokesman Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said five Indian jets had been downed across the border overnight. An Indian senior security source, who asked not to be named, said three of its fighter jets had crashed on home territory. “The death toll has climbed to 31 and 57 others have been wounded,” Chaudhry said in a televised address. The largest Indian strike was on an Islamic seminary near the Punjabi city of Bahawalpur, killing 13 people according to the Pakistan military.
Indian forces attacked facilities linked to Islamist militant groups Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, two Indian military spokespeople told a briefing in New Delhi, in what New Delhi called “Operation Sindoor”. Jaish said 10 relatives of its leader Masood Azhar - who was released from an Indian jail in 1999 in exchange for 155 hostages from a hijacked Indian Airlines plane - were killed. Sindoor is the Hindi language word for vermilion, a red powder that Hindu women put on the forehead or parting of their hair as a sign of marriage.
A government health and education complex in Muridke, 30 km from Lahore, was blown apart, along with a mosque in Muzaffarabad — the main city of Pakistan-administered Kashmir — killing its caretaker. Four children were among those killed in Wednesday’s attacks, according to the Pakistan military. Pakistan also said a hydropower plant in Kashmir was targeted by India, damaging a dam structure, after India threatened to stop the flow of water on its side of the border. Pakistan had earlier warned that tampering with the rivers that flow into its territory would be an “act of war”.
India’s Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said the overnight operation was New Delhi’s “right to respond” following the attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Kashmir last month. Pakistan had denied any involvement in the Pahalgam assault and called for an independent probe. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif labelled India’s strikes a “heinous act of aggression” that would “not go unpunished” and his National Security Committee called on the international community to hold India “accountable”.
In Muzaffarabad, United Nations military observers arrived to inspect a mosque that Islamabad said was struck by India. “There were terrible sounds during the night, there was panic among everyone,” said Muhammad Salman, who lives close to the mosque. “We are moving to a safer place... we are homeless now,” added 24-year-old Tariq Mir who was hit in the leg by shrapnel.
Residents collected damaged copies of the Holy Quran from among concrete, wood, and iron debris scattered across the grounds. In Indian-held Kashmir, residents fled in panic from the Pakistan shelling. “There was firing from Pakistan, which damaged the houses and injured many,” said Wasim Ahmed, 29, from Salamabad village. “They were taken to hospitals in Uri and Baramulla towns. There has been extensive damage here, everything is destroyed, and people are fleeing the area.”
India had been widely expected to respond militarily to the Pahalgam attack on April 22 that killed 26 people, mainly Hindu men, which it blamed on Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN-designated terrorist organization. The two nations have traded days of threats and tit-for-tat diplomatic measures, while Pakistan has conducted two missile tests.
The Indian army has reported nightly gunfire along the heavily militarized Line of Control that separates the region since April 24. “Escalation between India and Pakistan has already reached a larger scale than during the last major crisis in 2019, with potentially dire consequences”, International Crisis Group analyst Praveen Donthi said.
Diplomats have piled pressure on leaders to step back. “The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan,” the spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement. US President Donald Trump termed rising tension between India and Pakistan a shame and hoped that the fighting “ends very quickly”.
Concern poured in, including from China — a mutual neighbor of both nations — as well as from the EU, Britain, France, Russia, Germany and Turkey, while airlines have cancelled, diverted or rerouted flights. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was expected in New Delhi on Wednesday, two days after a visit to Islamabad, as Tehran seeks to mediate. Rebels in Indian-administered Kashmir have waged an insurgency since 1989, seeking independence or a merger with Pakistan. India regularly blames its neighbor for backing armed groups fighting its forces in Kashmir, a charge that Islamabad denies. - Agencies
