MUZAFFARABAD: India and Pakistan exchanged heavy artillery fire along their contested frontier on Wednesday after New Delhi launched deadly missile strikes on its arch-rival, in the worst violence between the nuclear-armed neighbours in two decades. At least 38 deaths were reported, with Islamabad saying 26 civilians were killed by the Indian strikes and firing along the border, and New Delhi adding at least 12 dead from Pakistani shelling. The fighting came two weeks after New Delhi blamed Islamabad for backing an attack on the Indian-run side of disputed Kashmir. The South Asian neighbours have fought multiple wars over the divided territory since they were carved out of the sub-continent at the end of British rule in 1947. The latest violence exceeds India's strikes in 2019, when New Delhi said it had hit "several militants" after a suicide bomber attacked an Indian security force convoy, killing 40.
An Indian senior security source, who asked not to be named, said three of its fighter jets had crashed on home territory. Pakistan said a hydropower plant in Kashmir was also targeted by India, damaging a dam structure, after India threatened to stop the flow of water on its side of the border. Pakistan had earlier warned that tampering with the rivers that flow into its territory would be an "act of war".
World leaders have issued urgent calls for de-escalation, while Pakistan's National Security Committee, which convened an emergency meeting led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and attended by Chief of Army Staff Asim Munir, called on the international community to hold India "accountable". In Muzaffarabad, the main city of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, troops cordoned off streets around a mosque Islamabad said was struck, with blast marks visible on the walls of several nearby homes.
United Nations military observers arrived on Wednesday afternoon to inspect the site, which was blown out on one side. Residents had begun collecting damaged copies of the Quran among concrete, wood and iron debris scattered across the grounds. Pakistan said 21 civilians were killed in the strikes — including four children — while five were killed by gunfire at the border.
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. The assault in the tourist hotspot of Pahalgam killed 26 people. 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 called for an independent probe, and on Wednesday Prime Minister Sharif labelled India's strikes a "heinous act of aggression" that would "not go unpunished". The two sides have exchanged gunfire nightly since April 24 along the LoC, according to the Indian army. Pakistan also said it has conducted two missile tests.
"Escalation between India and Pakistan has already reached a larger scale than during the last major crisis in 2019, with potentially dire consequences", International Crisis Group analyst Praveen Donthi said. Diplomats have piled pressure on leaders to step back. "The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan," the spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres, Stephane Dujarric, said in a statement.
US President Donald Trump told reporters in Washington he hoped that the fighting "ends very quickly". Concern poured in, including from China -- a mutual neighbour of both nations -- as well as from Britain, France and Russia, Germany and Türkiye, while airlines have cancelled, diverted or rerouted flights. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is expected in New Delhi on Wednesday, two days after a visit to Islamabad, as Tehran seeks to mediate. — AFP
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