India last night said it attacked nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir where strikes against it had been planned, and Pakistan reported at least three people died and 12 were injured, according to an initial assessment.
The Pakistani military announced the launch of an air and ground operation in retaliation for the attack and said it had shot down two Indian jets.
Pakistan is responding to Indian attacks, its Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said.
Pakistan said India launched missiles at three places. “Missiles were launched at us from the east, targeting the Muzaffarabad and Bahawalpur power stations. India attacked us with three missiles targeting Bahawalpur, Kotli, and Muzaffarabad,” the military spokesperson Ahmed Sharif stated.
Pakistan has closed its airspace for 48 hours and all flights have been cancelled, aviation sources said
An Indian government statement did not detail the nature of the strikes. “A little while ago, the Indian armed forces launched ‘Operation Sindoor’, hitting terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where attacks against India have been planned and directed,” the Indian statement said.
“No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted. India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution,” it said.
A Pakistani military spokesman told broadcaster Geo that Pakistan’s response was under way, without giving details. The spokesman said five places were hit including two mosques and reported three deaths and 12 people injured.
After the explosions, power was blacked out in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, witnesses said.
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.
India blamed Pakistan for the violence last month in which 26 men were killed and vowed to respond. Pakistan denied that it had anything to do with the killings and said that it had intelligence that India was planning to attack.
Pakistan has firmly rejected the allegations. Its Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Munir Akram, called India’s accusations “baseless claims intended to serve political and strategic interests.”
As the United Nations urged calm, US President Donald Trump said the Indian strikes against targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir were a ‘shame’ He told reporters at the White House that he had just heard about the intensification of hostilities.
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