Pakistan said eight people were killed early on May 7 in missile strikes launched by Indian armed forces and called the attack a "blatant act of war" amid mounting tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbors.
The fighting was the worst in more than two decades and followed an attack by Islamist assailants that killed 26 Hindu tourists in India-controlled Kashmir last month. India blamed Pakistan-based militants for the deadly attack; Pakistan denied involvement.
India said it struck nine Pakistani sites that were "terrorist infrastructure" from which attacks against it were orchestrated.
India said it also suffered deaths among its civilian population. The army said three civilians were killed by Pakistani troops who resorted to "arbitrary" shelling across the Line of Control, the de facto border that divides Kashmir, which is at the center of an 80-year-old territorial dispute between the two countries, and their international borders.
It added that the Indian Army was "responding in proportionate manner."
SEE ALSO: Pakistan Carries Out Ballistic Missile Test Amid India TensionsThe director-general of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Lieutenant General Ahmad Sharif, told a news conference that there had been "24 impacts from India on six places" and these resulted in the killing of eight citizens and the wounding of 35. Another eight are missing.
"Pakistan will return a response to the attack," he said before ending the news conference without taking questions.
He did not mention a report that the country's air force shot down Indian jets in retaliation. Pakistani Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on Xthat three Indian jets and one Indian drone had been shot down by Pakistan.
State Of Emergency
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif scheduled an emergency meeting of the National Security Committee for 10 a.m. local time on May 7.
The chief minister of Punjab Province, Maryam Nawaz, declared a state of emergency in the province, which borders India. All schools, colleges, and universities will be closed. Police and other security agencies have been placed on high alert, and doctors on leave have been asked to report for duty.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said the attack posed a significant threat to commercial air traffic, and the country suspended all flights and operations at the Lahore and Islamabad airports for 48 hours.
An Indian military statement referred to the military action as Operation Sindoor and said nine sites were hit.
"A little while ago, the Indian Armed Forces launched 'OPERATION SINDOOR', hitting terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed," the statement said.
“Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistan military facilities have been targeted,” the statement said, adding that “India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution.”
The ISPR said India fired missiles at three locations -- Muzaffarabad, the main city of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir; Kotli, also in Pakistan-administered Kashmir; and Bahawalpur in Punjab Province. The Bahawalpur and Muridke areas are considered centers for the banned groups Jaish-e Muhammad and Lashkar-e Jhangvi.
The attack sounded alarm bells in Washington, where US President Donald Trump said he had been informed about the attack and hopes the fighting "ends very quickly." In New York, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressed concern about the attack and called for maximum restraint from both countries.
"The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan," Guterres said, according to his spokesman.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio contacted Pakistani national-security adviser Lieutenant General Asim Malik, who is also chief of Pakistan's prime intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), to discussed the situation.
SEE ALSO: India And Pakistan Are On The Brink Of Conflict. Here's Why.Rubio also spoke with his counterpart from India and said he would continue to engage with both New Delhi and Islamabad to reach a resolution to the conflict.
"He is encouraging India and Pakistan to re-open a channel between their leadership to defuse the situation and prevent further escalation," said National Security Council spokesman Brian Hughes in a statement.
Soaring Tensions
Tensions have soared between the two countries in the aftermath of the deadly attack on the Hindu tourists.
Hassan Abbas, a professor of international relations at the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, told RFE/RL that while terrorism must always be condemned, Pakistan’s hasty framing of the incident as a false-flag operation by India -- without investigation -- is irresponsible. Equally, India’s rush to blame Pakistan without credible evidence only deepens mistrust and raises the risk of escalation, Abbas said.
"We need a different kind of courage now -- the courage to imagine cooperation...not confrontation. In a region facing the twin crises of poverty and climate vulnerability, war is a luxury no one can afford," Abbas said.
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Why Kashmir Remains A Flashpoint Between India, Pakistan, And China
Hussain Haqqani, former Pakistani ambassador to the United States and senior fellow at the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy and Hudson Foundation, told RFE/RL that domestic politics on both sides requires the leadership of the two countries to take a nationalistic stance.
The only sane approach in this situation for India is to demonstrate a strike and for Pakistan to respond in a way that the situation should not flare up, Haqqani said.
“But if one side strikes, then another responds, and then the other strikes again and it continues, then it could go out of control,” he added.
Although the people of the two countries are cheering at the moment, it would be the people who would be hurt the most, because the economies of the two countries will suffer, he said.
SEE ALSO: Indian, Pakistani Troops Exchange Fire In Kashmir Amid Mounting TensionsTauseef Ahmad Khan, an author and former head of the Mass Communication Department at Federal Urdu University in Karachi, said that India-Pakistan tensions ignite artificial patriotism.
"The 1.5 billion people of the region -- many living in poverty -- are the real victims of this conflict,” Khan said.
Indian media is under the influence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s "Hindutva" ideology, while Pakistani media is tightly controlled by what he called the deep state, Khan told RFE/RL.
"There’s no room left for sanity,” he said.