India and Pakistan exchanged heavy artillery along their contested frontier on Wednesday, after New Delhi launched missile strikes on its arch-rival in a major escalation between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
Dead were reported on both sides. Pakistan said Indian strikes had killed at least eight people, and India said Pakistani artillery fire had killed three civilians along the de facto border in contested Kashmir.
New Delhi announced it had carried out “precision strikes at terrorist camps” at nine sites in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, days after it blamed Islamabad for a deadly attack on the Indian-run side of the disputed region.
The Indian army said “justice is served”, with New Delhi adding that its actions “have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature”.
Pakistan’s defense minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told AFP: “The retaliation has already started. We won’t take long to settle the score.”
He accused Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi of launching the strikes to “shore up” his domestic popularity.
Islamabad reported eight civilians—including one child—killed in the strikes, which hit at least six locations.
Earlier, Pakistan’s military said three locations in Pakistan-administered Kashmir had been hit along with two—Bahawalpur and Muridke—in the country’s most populous province of Punjab.
AFP correspondents in Pakistani-run Kashmir and Punjab heard several loud explosions.
Shortly after, India accused Pakistan of “indiscriminate” firing and artillery shelling across the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border in Kashmir, with bursts of flame as shells landed seen by AFP reporters.
“Three innocent civilians lost their lives”, the Indian army said, adding it was responding in a “proportionate manner”.
India had been widely expected to respond militarily to the April 22 attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir by gunmen it said were from Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN-designated terrorist organisation.
That assault left 26 people dead, mainly Hindu men, in the tourist hotspot of Pahalgam. No group has claimed responsibility.
New Delhi has blamed Islamabad for backing the attack, sparking a series of heated threats and diplomatic tit-for-tat measures.
Pakistan rejects the accusations, and the two sides have exchanged nightly gunfire since April 24 along the LoC, according to the Indian army. Pakistan also said it has held two missile tests.
‘Maximum restraint’
Wednesday’s strikes are a dangerous heightening of friction between the South Asian neighbours, who have fought multiple wars since they were carved out of the sub-continent at the end of British rule in 1947.
For days the international community has piled pressure on Pakistan and India to step back from the brink of war.
“The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan,” the spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement, adding that Guterres called for “maximum restraint.”
Asked about the strikes, U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters in Washington he hopes the fighting “ends very quickly”.
India’s embassy in Washington said New Delhi’s national security advisor Ajit Doval had briefed U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the strikes.
Rubio also spoke with Pakistan’s national security advisor, Lt. General Asim Malik, a senior Pakistani military official told AFP.
U.S. National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes confirmed that Rubio had spoken with his counterparts from both India and Pakistan.
“I am monitoring the situation between India and Pakistan closely,” Rubio said on X, adding that he will “continue to engage both Indian and Pakistani leadership towards a peaceful resolution”.
Explosions near LoC
India’s army said it had “demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution”, adding that “no Pakistani military facilities have been targeted”.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, calling the Indian attack “unprovoked” and “cowardly”, said the “heinous act of aggression will not go unpunished.”
Indian fighter jets could be heard flying over Srinagar, the capital of Indian-administered Kashmir.
Loud explosions could also be heard in the town of Poonch, only about 10 miles (16 kilometres) from the LoC.
Rebels in Indian-administered Kashmir have waged an insurgency since 1989, seeking independence or a merger with Pakistan.
India regularly blames its neighbour for backing armed groups fighting its forces in Kashmir, a charge that Islamabad denies.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is expected in New Delhi on Wednesday, two days after a visit to Islamabad, as Tehran seeks to mediate.
India was also set to hold several civil defence drills Wednesday, while schools in Pakistan’s Punjab were closed, local government officials said.
The strikes came just hours after Modi said that water flowing across India’s borders would be stopped. Pakistan had warned that tampering with the rivers that flow from India into its territory would be an “act of war”.
Modi did not mention Islamabad specifically, but his speech came after New Delhi suspended its part of the 65-year-old Indus Waters Treaty, which governs water critical to Pakistan for consumption and agriculture.
“India’s water used to go outside, now it will flow for India,” Modi said in a speech in New Delhi.
