Pakistan has accused India of committing a “blatant act of war” and promised retaliation after New Delhi launched deadly missile attacks along their contested border in disputed Kashmir, in the worst eruption of violence between the nuclear-armed neighbours in two decades.
In an address before Pakistan’s parliament on Wednesday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif denounced as “cowardly” the attack carried out by India, as he repeated Islamabad’s assertion it had nothing to do with the April 22 Pahalgam attack in the Indian-administered Kashmir region.
He said Pakistan’s response to the attack, which included the downing of Indian fighter jets, proved that the country was prepared to “knock enemy planes off into the sea”.
Before his address, Sharif presided over a National Security Committee meeting, during which Pakistani officials condemned the “illegal acts” of India, describing them as “blatant violations of Pakistan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
“The deliberate targeting of civilians, including innocent women and children, by the Indian military constitutes a heinous and shameful crime, that is in violation of all norms of human behaviour and the provisions of international law,” a committee statement said.
Earlier, Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif also declared that Islamabad “won’t take long to settle the score” and said military operations were already under way.
India launched a huge military bombardment overnight called “Operation Sindoor”, striking nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir and killing at least 26 people. In response, Pakistan said it struck Indian military targets and claimed to have shot down several warplanes, resulting in at least 10 deaths.
Residents of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, said they fled their homes and ran into surrounding hills as India launched air attacks on part of the city.
“The whole house moved. Everyone got scared, we all evacuated, took our kids and went up [into the hills],” Muhammad Shair Mir, 46, told the Reuters news agency.
Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said on Wednesday that New Delhi carried out the attacks after its intelligence monitoring showed that “further attacks against India were impending.
“Therefore, it was necessary to take preemptive and precautionary strikes,” he said, during a joint news conference with top Indian military commanders.
The military added that it targeted “terrorist camps” that served as recruitment centres, launchpads, and indoctrination centres, and sites housing weapons and training facilities.
Pahalgam attack
The strikes followed an attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir in March, which New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-backed armed groups.
In New Delhi, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also called an emergency cabinet meeting to discuss the latest deadly exchange, India-based journalist Neha Poonia told Al Jazeera.
Poonia also reported that Modi had cancelled his trip to Europe after the fighting broke out.
Modi has yet to respond to allegations by Pakistan that he carried out the attacks to “shore up” domestic support.
While India insisted that the attacks only targeted armed groups, Pakistan claimed that many of those who were killed and wounded were civilians, including four children.
In Punjab, the Pakistani military also claimed that Indian missiles hit a mosque in the city of Bahawalpur, killing a child and wounding two other people.
Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said that in response to the Indian attacks, Pakistan’s air force has launched retaliatory operations and claimed to have downed Indian military aircraft, including a Sukhoi and MiG jets.
“The Pakistani air force said that its jet fighters have not crossed into Indian airspace during the operation, and they said that all its aircraft have returned to base unharmed.”
There was no immediate response from the Indian military about the attacks, Hyder said.
Meanwhile, our correspondent said funeral rites are set to begin for those killed in the Indian attacks, which hit cities Muzaffarabad and Kotli, both in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
Earlier, Hyder also reported that heavy shelling had resumed on the Line of Control that separates Pakistan-administered Kashmir from Indian-administered Kashmir.
“The escalation is something that everyone is watching to see … what Pakistan’s next reaction would be,” he said.
Pakistan warns India is ‘playing with fire’
In an interview with Al Jazeera, former Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar blamed India for the “unprovoked and unsubstantiated” attack against her country, adding that New Delhi is “playing with fire”.
Khar said Islamabad has been “warning the world” about India’s “lack of adherence to international law” regarding the situation in Kashmir.
“Now it has upped the ante of being the aggressor and operating with impunity,” she said.
Diplomats have piled pressure on leaders of both countries to step back.
“The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan,” the spokesperson for UN chief Antonio Guterres, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement.
United States President Donald Trump said the clashes were “a shame”.
“I just hope it ends very quickly,” Trump said at the White House.
China, which shares land borders with both countries and is a close ally of Pakistan, said it expressed “regret over India’s military action this morning” and was “concerned about the current developments”.
The United Kingdom is ready to support both India and Pakistan to de-escalate tensions, Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said on Wednesday.
