By Asif Shahzad and Shivam Patel
MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India attacked Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir on Wednesday with at least eight deaths reported, and Pakistan called the assault a “blatant act of war” as the worst fighting in more than two decades erupted between the nuclear-armed enemies.
Amid a nearly 80-year-old territorial dispute over Kashmir, India’s offensive followed an attack by Islamist assailants that killed 26 Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir last month. India said Pakistan-based militants were responsible, but Pakistan denied involvement.
Calling its campaign “Operation Sindoor”, India said it struck nine Pakistani sites on Wednesday that were “terrorist infrastructure” where attacks against it were orchestrated. Islamabad said six Pakistani locations were targeted.
Indian forces attacked the headquarters of Islamist militant groups Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Indian defence source told Reuters. “India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution,” a statement from India said.
Pakistan said India hit three sites with missiles, and a military spokesman told Reuters his country shot down five Indian aircraft, a claim not confirmed by India.
The countries’ armies also exchanged intense shelling and heavy gunfire across much of their de facto border in the Himalayan region of Kashmir, police and witnesses told Reuters.
“In an unprovoked and blatant act of war,” Indian fighter jets remained in Indian airspace but “violated Pakistan’s sovereignty using standoff weapons, targeting civilian population”, the Pakistani foreign ministry said.
Since a 2003 ceasefire, to which both countries recommitted in 2021, targeted strikes between the neighbours are extremely rare, especially Indian strikes on Pakistani areas outside Pakistani Kashmir.
After the explosions on Wednesday, Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, lost power, witnesses said.
A Pakistani military spokesman said there were 35 people injured and two missing in addition to the eight killed.
Indian broadcaster CNN News-18 said India’s attack killed 12 “terrorists” and injured at least 55 people, citing Indian sources. Reuters could not immediately confirm the information.
SCENES OF SMOKE, FIRE
Indian TV channels showed videos of explosions, fire, large plumes of smoke in the night sky and people fleeing in several places in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir. Reuters could not independently verify the footage.
Witnesses and one police officer at two sites on the frontier in Indian Kashmir said they heard loud explosions and intense artillery shelling as well as jets in the air.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Islamabad was responding to the Indian attacks but did not provide details. U.S. President Donald Trump called the situation “a shame” and added, “I hope it ends quickly.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for maximum military restraint from both countries, a spokesperson said.
Pakistan’s populous province of Punjab declared an emergency, its chief minister said, and hospitals and emergency services were on high alert.
A Pakistani military spokesman told broadcaster Geo that two mosques were among the sites hit by India. The Pakistani defence minister told Geo that all the sites were civilian and not militant camps.
He said India’s claim of targeting “camps of terrorists is false”.
After India’s strikes, the Indian army said in a post on X on Wednesday: “Justice is served.”
A spokesperson for the Indian Embassy in Washington told Reuters that evidence pointed “towards the clear involvement of Pakistan-based terrorists in this terror attack,” referring to the April tourist killings.
India said two of three suspects in that attack were Pakistani nationals but had not detailed its evidence. Pakistan denied that it had anything to do with the April killings.
News of the strikes hit India’s stock futures with the benchmark NSE Nifty 50 index falling 1.19% at the GIFT city financial centre.
Several airlines including India’s largest airline, IndiGo, Air India and Qatar Airways canceled flights in areas of India and Pakistan due to closures of airports and airspace
The name of India’s military operation, Sindoor, was an apparent reference to the April attack on Hindu tourists. Nodding towards the 26 husbands killed, Sindoor is the Hindi word for the red vermilion worn by married Hindu women, which they traditionally discontinue if they are widowed.
Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval spoke to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other senior Indian officials briefed counterparts in the UK, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, an Indian source told Reuters.
The Indian strike goes far beyond New Delhi’s response to previous attacks in Kashmir blamed on Pakistan. Those include India’s 2019 air strike on Pakistan after 40 Indian paramilitary police were killed in Kashmir and India’s retaliation for the deaths of 18 soldiers in 2016.
(Reporting by Asif Shahzad, Gibran Peshimam, Saeed Shah, Ariba Shahid in Pakistan, Shivam Patel, Tanvi Mehta, Krishna Das in New Delhi, Fayaz Bukhari in Srinagar, and Tariq Maqbool in Muzaffarabad; Writing by YP Rajesh; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
