Pakistan has shot down five Indian fighter jets as the nation vowed to retaliate after missiles rained down across the contested border.
Why are Pakistan and India fighting?
Fears of a full-blown conflict between the two nuclear-armed nations have reached fever pitch after the long-running conflict blew up overnight – with strikes that killed at least 26 people including a child.
Fighter jets roared through the skies over the Himalayan territory early Wednesday and the sounds of explosions could be heard near the so-called Line of Control.
Delhi claimed it had fired missiles across the border into Pakistani ‘terror camps’ in Kashmir just days after it blamed Islamabad for a deadly attack on the Indian side of the contested region.
Operation SINDOOR
‘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 Indian government said in a statement in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
The Indian army added that no Pakistani military facilities had been targeted, noting that India had ‘demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution’.
Number of deaths and injuries
Eight people have died including two children, and at least 35 Pakistanis have been injured, a spokesperson for the Pakistani military told BBC.
How many jets were destroyed by Pakistan?
Defense Minister Khawaja Asif also claimed the country had shot down ‘at least five’ Indian fighter jets. This is said to include Rafale aircraft.
India has claimed that ‘no Pakistani civilian, economic or military targets have been hit’ in the missile attacks, although Pakistani officials claimed this was not the case and civilians including women and children had been targeted.
At least seven have been killed and around 32 others injured in Pakistani shelling into Indian-controlled Kashmir after they vowed to launch retaliatory strikes, Indian police and medics said.
