India Strikes Pakistan Over Kashmir Killings, Raising Fears of War

Tensions between India and Pakistan surged Wednesday after New Delhi launched a wave of missile strikes on targets across Pakistan and the Pakistani-controlled part of Kashmir, NBC News reported.  

The missile strikes marked the most serious conflict between the nuclear-armed rivals in more than two decades, and Islamabad vowed to retaliate. 

The strike came in response to the killing of 25 Hindu tourists and one local man in the Indian-administered Kashmir region on April 22. 

Dubbed “Operation Sindoor,” the strikes hit nine locations in Pakistani territory, India said. It described the targets as “terrorist infrastructure” sites linked to Islamist groups Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, which officials say are linked to the group that carried out the April 22 massacre.  

The strikes not only hit sites in Pakistan-administered Kashmir but also locations in Punjab province – marking India’s first attacks there since their last full-scale war in 1999. 

New Delhi claimed the strikes were a pre-emptive move aimed at preventing more attacks from happening in the future. Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said the strikes were executed with “exactness” and avoided civilian areas. 

However, Pakistan countered that at least 31 people died and 46 were wounded in the strikes and that some of the targeted locations were not militant camps, Reuters wrote. 

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif described strikes as an “act of war” and vowed a “strong response.”  

On Wednesday, the Pakistani military said it had downed five Indian fighter jets and one drone, a claim disputed by India. 

Meanwhile, intense shelling and gunfire erupted along the Line of Control (LoC), the two neighbors’ de facto border in Kashmir. At least 15 civilians died and 51 were wounded in Indian-administered Kashmir, while at least six people were killed on the Pakistani side. 

Analysts warned that the April massacre and the recent clashes could touch off a larger-scale military conflict between India and Pakistan, which have fought three wars – two over Kashmir – since 1947, the year Pakistan became a separate entity from India and both gained independence from British rule. 

Both sides have suspended airspace access and trade, while India has closed its border crossing and cracked down on separatists in Kashmir. 

Global powers, including the United States, China, and Russia, called for restraint from both countries.  

UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the world “cannot afford a military confrontation” between the two nuclear-powered states.