India pulled missiles on a territory under Pakistani control in several places early Wednesday Wednesday, killing at least 31 people – including a child – in what the Pakistani Prime Minister described as “act of war”.
India said it has attacked the infrastructure that would have been used by activists who made the tourist massacre last month in cashmere, whose control is divided between India and Pakistan, but that the two countries claim in its entirety.
Pakistan said he had shot down several Indian fighter planes in retaliation, with three planes falling on villages of the cashmere controlled by India.
Police and Indian doctors, on the other hand, said that at least seven civilians had also been killed in the region by Pakistani bombing.
Tensions have climbed between nuclear weapons neighbors since the April attack in which armed men killed 26 people, mainly Indian Hindu tourists, in a popular meadow in the disputed territory of cashmere.
The army of India said that its operation had been named “Sindoor”, an Hindi word for the bright red vermilion powder carried by Hindu women married on the forehead and hair, referring to the women taken in the cashmere massacre whose husbands were killed in front of them by the attackers.
India blamed Pakistan to have supported the original attack, but Islamabad denied the accusation.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif sentenced the air strikes on Wednesday and said his country would retaliate.
“Pakistan has the right to give a solid response to this act of war imposed by India, and a strong response is indeed given,” he said.
The country's national security committee met on Wednesday morning and Pakistan summoned India's business to file a demonstration.
In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a special security meeting meeting after the military officials said the number of deaths on the Indian side had increased to 10.
Exchanges raise the threat of war
Stéphane Dujarric, UN spokesperson, said in a statement on Tuesday that secretary general Antonio Guterres called for maximum restraint because the world could not “allow himself a military confrontation” between India and Pakistan.
Several Indian states have planned civil defense exercises for later Wednesday, according to the Interior Ministry of India, to train civilians and security personnel to respond in the event of “hostile attacks”.
These exercises in India are rare in time without crisis.
Indian politicians from different political parties praised strikes. “Victory to Mother India,” wrote Defense Minister Rajnath Singh in an article on X.
ADVERTISEMENTThe main party of the India opposition congress called for national unity and said that it was “extremely proud” of the country's army.
“We applaud their resolution and their courage resolved,” said the president of the Mallikarjun Kharge party.
Panic and destruction scenes
The missiles hit six locations in cashmere administered by Pakistan and the Punjab province in the country, killing at least 31 people, including women and children, said Military spokesperson for Pakistan, Lieutenant-General Ahmed Sharif.
The officials said that 38 other people had been injured by strikes and that five other people were killed in Pakistan during the shots through the border later.
ADVERTISEMENTSharif said Indian jets have also damaged infrastructure in a cashmere dam administered by Pakistan, calling for a violation of international standards.
The Indian Ministry of Defense said that strikes aimed at least nine sites “where terrorist attacks against India have been planned”.
“Our actions have been concentrated, measured and not ecological. No Pakistani military installation has been targeted,” said the press release, adding that “India has demonstrated a considerable deduction”.
Pakistan said the strikes struck at least two sites previously linked to prohibited militant groups.
ADVERTISEMENTOne hit the Subhan mosque in the city of Bahawalpur du Punjab, killing 13 people, including a child, according to Zohaib Ahmed, a doctor in a neighboring hospital.
The mosque is near a seminar which was once the central office of Jaish-e-Mohammed, a militant group prohibited in 2002. Managers say that the group has had no operational presence on the site since the prohibition.
Another missile struck a mosque in Muridke, damaging its structure. A sprawling building located nearby served as a registered office of Lashkar-E-Taiba until 2013, when Pakistan prohibited the group and arrested its founder.
The attack on last month against tourists was claimed by an unknown militant group called cashmere resistance, which, according to India, is also known as the resistance front and is linked to Lashkar-E-Taiba.
ADVERTISEMENTIn Muzaffarabad, the main city of cashmere controlled by Pakistan, resident Abdul Sammad said he had heard several explosions while the explosion was tearing away the houses. He saw people running and the authorities immediately cut the power of the region.
People took refuge in the streets and in the open areas, fearing what could happen. “We were afraid that the next missile could hit our house,” said Mohammad Ashraf.
India struck by bombardments while planes fall into the villages
Along the control line, which divides the disputed region of cashmere between India and Pakistan, there have been heavy exchanges of shooting.
Indian police and doctors have said that seven civilians had been killed and 30 injured by Pakistani bombing in the Poonch district near the very militarized control line, the de facto border that divides the chased cashmere between the two countries. Officials said several houses were also damaged in the bombing.
ADVERTISEMENTThe Indian army said that Pakistani troops “have used arbitrary fire”, including shots and artillery bombings through the border.
Shortly after the strikes of India, the planes fell on three villages of the cashmere controlled by India.
Sharif, the Pakistani military spokesman, said that the country's air force had shot down five Indian planes in retaliation for strikes. There was no immediate comment from India on the claim of Pakistan.
The debris of an aircraft were dispersed in the village of Wuyan on the outskirts of the main city of the region, including in a school and a mosque complex, according to the police and residents of Srinagar. The firefighters fought for hours to turn off the resulting fires.
ADVERTISEMENT“There was a huge fire in the sky. Then we also heard several explosions,” said Mohammed Yousuf Dar, a Wuyan resident.
Another plane fell into an open field in the village of Bhardha Kalan, near the control line in the cashmere under Indian control.
Sachin Kumar, a village resident, told the Associated Press that he had heard massive explosions followed by a huge fireball.
Kumar said he and several other villagers rushed to the scene and found two pilots with injuries. The two were then taken by the Indian army.
ADVERTISEMENTA third plane crashed into a farm in the north of the state of Punjab in India, said a police officer at the AP, speaking under the cover of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the media.
