India and Pakistan yesterday exchanged heavy artillery fire along their contested frontier after New Delhi launched deadly missile strikes on its archrival, in the worst violence between the nuclear-armed neighbors in two decades.
At least 38 deaths were reported, with Islamabad saying 26 civilians were killed by the Indian strikes and firing along the border, and New Delhi adding at least 12 dead from Pakistani shelling.
The fighting came two weeks after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing an attack on the Indian-run side of disputed Kashmir.
Photo: AFP
The South Asian neighbors have fought multiple wars over the divided territory since they were carved out of the subcontinent at the end of British rule in 1947.
The latest violence exceeds India’s strikes in 2019.
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.”
Photo: Reuters
Pakistani Minister of Defence 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.”
Military spokesman Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said five Indian jets had been downed across the border.
An Indian senior security source, who asked not to be named, said three of its fighter jets had crashed on home territory.
A hydropower plant in Kashmir was also targeted by India, damaging a dam structure, after India threatened to stop the flow of water on its side of the border, Pakistan said.
Pakistan had earlier warned that tampering with the rivers that flow into its territory would be an “act of war.”
World leaders have issued urgent calls for de-escalation, while Pakistan’s National Security Committee, which convened an emergency meeting led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and attended by Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir, called on the international community to hold India “accountable.”
In Muzaffarabad, the main city of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, troops cordoned off streets around a mosque Islamabad said was struck, with blast marks visible on the walls of several nearby homes.
The 70-year caretaker of the mosque was killed, and buried later yesterday at a funeral attended by about 600 people.
“There were terrible sounds during the night, there was panic among everyone,” said Muhammed 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.
UN military observers arrived yesterday afternoon to inspect the site, which was blown out on one side.
Pakistan said 21 civilians were killed in the strikes — including four children — while five were killed by gunfire at the border.
At least 12 people were killed and 29 others wounded in Poonch in Indian-administered Kashmir, local official Azhar Majid said.
“We woke up as we heard the sound of firing,” Farooq, a man in Poonch, told the Press Trust of India news agency from his hospital bed, his head wrapped in bandage. “I saw shelling raining down.”
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