The attack came amid growing tensions among nuclear-armed neighbours in the aftermath of an attack on Hindu tourists in Kashmir, India.
India attacks Pakistan after Hindu tourist attack last month
Indian officials say they attacked Pakistan after a fatal Hindu tourist attack in Indo-Kashmir last month. Pakistani officials denied involvement.
MZAFARABAD – India has reported at least three deaths on nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-Kashmir, saying Pakistan is increasingly responding as the worst battle broke out in the year that broke out among longtime enemies.
The nuclear-armed army of neighbors exchanged heavy gunfires and heavy gunfires across the frontier in conflict Kashmir at at least three locations, police and witnesses told Reuters.
India’s aggressive May 7 came amid rising tensions in the aftermath of an attack on Hindu tourists in Kashmir, India. The Muslim assailant killed 26 men in the attack on April 22nd. This is the worst violence targeted at Indian civilians in nearly 20 years.
Pakistan said India has launched missiles in three locations, but the Indian government’s statement did not detail the nature of the strike. India said an attack on it was planned and hit the ordered “terrorist infrastructure.”
President Donald Trump told White House reporters he had just heard about the attack. “I hope it finishes very quickly,” he said at an event on the evening of May 6th.
Indian television channels have shown videos of explosions, fires, massive smoke in the night sky, and people fleeing in several places in Pakistan and Kashmir, Pakistan. Reuters was unable to independently verify the footage.
Witnesses and one police officer at two sites in the frontier of Indian Kashmir said they heard loudly explosions and heavy artillery fire and jets in the air.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shebaz Sharif said Islamabad is responding to the Indian attack but has not provided details. A state of emergency has been declared in Pakistan’s populous Punjab, the prime minister said, and hospitals and emergency services were on alert.
India has issued a statement on its strike. “Sometimes ago, the Indian forces launched the ‘Operation Sindoah’, attacking Jammu and Kashmir terrorists occupied by Pakistan and Pakistan that terrorist attacks against India were planned and directed,” the statement said.
“Our actions are inherently focused, measured and inequality. Pakistan’s military facilities are not targeted. India has demonstrated considerable restraint in the way they select and execute targets.”
Pakistan says two mosques have attacked
A Pakistani military spokesman said the site that India attacked included two mosques, which at least three people were killed and 12 people were injured.
Pakistan’s Defense Minister Kawaja Muhammad Asif told Geo that all sites India targets are civilians and not extremist camps.
He said there is India’s claim that India fires missiles from its own airspace and targets “terrorist camps falsely.”
After the Indian strike, the Indian military said in a post on X on Wednesday that “justice will be provided.”
After the explosion, power has turned black in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Kashmir, Pakistan, the witnesses said.
India accused Pakistan of violence last month, vowing to respond with 26 men killed. Pakistan denied that it had nothing to do with the killing and said it had the intelligence that India was planning an attack.
Sindoor, the name of India’s military operation, is an obvious reference to a woman who lost her spouse in an attack on Hindu tourists in Pahargam last month.
Sindoor is a traditional red bug Hindi word worn by married women on their foreheads, symbolizing protection and marital commitment. Women traditionally stop wearing them when they are widows.
(Written by Asif Shazad of Pakistan, Gibran Pesimum, Aliba Shahid, Shivam Patel of New Delhi, Shivam Patel, Fayaz Buhari of Srinagar, and YP Rajesh, edited by Cynthia Austerman)
Contributed by Francesca Chambers, USA Today