Pakistan authorized its armed forces to take “corresponding” retaliation measures against India after a missile attack held at night by the Indian Air Force killed 26 people throughout Pakistan, increasing the fears of a climb of conflict between the two countries with nuclear arsenals.
In a blunt statement, Pakistan accused India of “starting hell” in the region after performing attacks to nine locations in Pakistan and Pakistani province of Pinjab in the early hours of Wednesday.
India said the attacks were a direct retaliation for an attack on India -controlled Caxemira late last month where militants attacked and killed 25 Hindu tourists and their guide.
India accused Pakistan of direct involvement in the attacks through Islamic militant organizations that the country has long been accused of supporting. After their air strikes on Wednesday, which killed 26 people, including several children, and left 45 injured, India celebrated the victory over Pakistan.
The Indian army stated that the attacks had the specific target of the terrorists and training fields of two Islamic militant groups, Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, who have long been accused of operating freely from Pakistan and have been involved in some of India’s most lethal terrorist attacks.
“We killed only those who killed our innocent,” said India Defense Minister Rajnath Singh, while the Minister of Internal Affairs, Amit Shah, said the government was “determined to give an appropriate response to any attack on India and its people.”
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The Indian army described missile attacks as “not staggered, proportional and responsible.” Indian politicians from different political parties praised the operation, which was named “Sindoor”, a word in Hindi for the vermilion powder used by women married in their tests and hair. It was a reference to women whose husbands were killed in front of them in the attack on Caxemira.
Pakistan stated that “unjustified and unjustified attacks martyred men, women and innocent children” and denied the existence of any terrorist camp or infrastructure in the areas affected by India.
For the first time since the war between India and Pakistan in 1971, Indian missiles have reached the interior of Punjab, the most important province from the political and military point of view of Pakistan, killing at least 16 people.
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‘Flagrant Act of War’
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif made it clear that his country saw India’s attacks as a “flagrant act of war” and intended to take retaliation measures, although he did not discuss the way it would take. At a National Security Council meeting on Wednesday, the Sharif government authorized the country’s armed forces to take steps to defend Pakistan sovereignty “at a time, place and way of his choice.”
In a parliament session on Wednesday, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, a co-president of the Popular Party of Pakistan, who rules as part of the coalition government, reaffirmed the country’s right to defend himself and said that Pakistan’s response to India attacks “yet to come.”
“Pakistan has the right to respond to this attack as he wants,” he said. Caxemira, at the foot of Himalayas, has been disputed since the division of India and the formation of Pakistan in 1947. Both India and Pakistan claim it fully, but each controls a part of the territory, separated by one of the most militarized borders in the world: the “control line” based on an established ceasefire border after the 1947-48 war. China controls another part in the east.
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India and Pakistan entered war three times because of Caxemira, the last of them in 1999.
There was evidence that India had also suffered losses in Wednesday’s attacks, which were carried out by military aircraft and drones within India’s own airspace. Pakistan claimed that about 80 Indian jets had participated in the attacks and said it had “exercised moderation” by slaughtering only five.
The Indian government remained silent over all the aircraft that would have been shot down, but the wreckage of at least three planes were reported in areas of Caxemira controlled by India and the Indian state of Punjab.
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The Pakistan National Security Committee said the country reserves the right to respond “in self -defense, at the moment, place and way to choose.”
The statement stated that the attacks were made “under the false pretext of the presence of imaginary terrorist fields” and said they killed civilians.
Southern Asia analyst Michael Kugelman said the attacks were some of the most intense India against his rival in years and that the response of Pakistan “will certainly be blunt too.”
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“These are two strong armed forces that, even with nuclear weapons as a deterrent, are not afraid to employ considerable levels of conventional military force against each other,” said Kugelman. “The risks of climbing are real. And they can well increase, and quickly.”
In 2019, the two countries arrived close to a war after an insurgent from Caxemira crashed with a car loaded with explosives on a bus carrying Indian soldiers, killing 40 people. India responded with air strikes.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asked for maximum containment because the world could not “allow a military confrontation” between India and Pakistan, according to a statement by spokesman Stephane Dujaric.
China also asked for calm. Beijing is from afar the largest investor in Pakistan and has several border disputes with India, including one in the northeast of the Caixemira region.
Several Indian states performed Civil Defense exercises on Wednesday to train civilians and security teams to react in case of attack. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi postponed his next trip to Norway, Croatia and the Netherlands.
Panic and Destruction scenes
Missile attacks hit six locations and killed at least 26 people, including women and children, said Pakistan Military spokesman, Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif.
Authorities said 38 people were injured in the attacks, and five more people were killed in Pakistan during shots across the border at the end of the day.
In Muzaffarabad, Pakistan’s main city of Caxemira, resident Abdul Sammad said he heard several explosions, while the explosions hit the houses. He saw people running in panic and the authorities immediately cut the energy from the area.
People ran to the streets or to open areas. “We were afraid that the next missile would reach our house,” said Mohammad Ashraf, another resident.
Indian jets damaged the infrastructure of a dam in the Pakistan cashmire managed, according to Sharif, the military spokesman, calling this a violation of international standards.
The attacks also reached close to at least two locations previously linked to militant groups that have since been banned, according to Pakistan.
One of them hit the subhan mosque in the city of Bahawalpur in Punjab, killing 13 people, according to Zohaib Ahmed, a doctor at a nearby hospital.
The mosque is close to a seminar that was once the Jaish-e-Mohammed central office, a militant group forbidden in 2002. Authorities say the group has no operational presence on site since the ban.
Another missile hit a mosque in Muridke, Punjab, damaging it. A large building located nearby served as the Lashkar-e-Taiba headquarters until 2013, when Pakistan banned the militant group and arrested its founder.
The Ministry of Defense of India called the attacks “focused, and non -scale in nature.” “No military installation of Pakistan has been hit,” the statement said.
In the village of Wuyan, Cashmira Indiana, Adnan Ahmad, 25, told the British newspaper The Guardian heard a strong bends around 1:40 am. “When I ran to the window I saw an aircraft in flames falling,” he said. “There was another aircraft moving above the falling aircraft. The aircraft landed near a school building, reaching trees. I ran to the accident site along with other neighbors. There were several explosions of the wreckage fallen for about an hour.”
Since the early hours of the morning, there have been heavy shots between the Indian and Pakistani forces on the control line, the actual border that divides the cashmire. According to authorities in India-controlled Caxemira, at least 12 civilians on the Indian side have been killed since Wednesday morning. Pakistan reported that at least five people had been killed by bombing on their side of the line.
As the shots continued throughout the day, thousands of residents who lived near Loc, on the Indian side of the border, were forced to flee to safer areas. Local residents described that they were terrified in the midst of what they called “rain of artillery” that damaged houses, a Sikh temple, agricultural fields and vehicles.
While the sound of artillery fire rained outside his house, Mohammad Mashooq, another resident of Poonch, said he feared for his family’s life. “We begged the governments of India and Pakistan to stop this madness,” he said. “They should let us live in peace – there has been enough destruction and loss of lives.”
Abdullah Khan had been confined to a basement with six members of his family since the night attack. “Morteer projectiles have fallen around us since last night. Although many have managed to escape to safer areas, we didn’t find an opportunity to escape,” he said.
Shots and aircraft exchanges fall on villages in the territory controlled by India
Throughout the control line, which divides the disputed region of Caxemira between India and Pakistan, there was an intense exchange of fire.
Police and Indian doctors said 12 civilians were killed and at least 40 were injured by Pakistani bombings in the Poonch district near the highly militarized actual border. At least 10 civilians were also injured in the URI sector in Caxemira, police said.
Shortly after India’s attacks, planes fell into three villages: two in Caxemira, controlled by India, and a third in the Indian state of Punjab.
The wreckage of an airplane were scattered in a village, including a school and the complex of a mosque, according to police and residents. The firefighters fought for hours to erase the resulting flames.
“There was a big fire in the sky. Then we also heard several explosions,” said Mohammed Yousuf Dar, resident of Wuyan village in India -controlled cashmire.
Another aircraft crashed into an open field in Bhardha Kalan’s village. Resident Sachin Kumar told The Associated Press that he heard large explosions and saw a huge fireball.
Kumar said he and several other people ran to the scene, where they saw Indian soldiers taking the pilots.
A third aircraft fell into a agricultural field in Punjab, a police officer told AP, on anonymity because he was not allowed to talk to the media.
