JAMMU/SRINAGAR, India: Pakistan’s armed forces launched “multiple attacks” using drones and other munitions along India’s entire western border on Thursday night and early Friday (May 9), the Indian army said, as conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours intensified.
The old enemies have been clashing since India on Wednesday struck multiple locations in Pakistan on that it said were “terrorist camps”. This was in retaliation for a deadly attack in its restive region of Kashmir last month, in which it said Islamabad was involved.
Pakistan denied the accusation.
Both countries have exchanged cross-border firing and shelling and sent drones and missiles into each other’s airspace since then, with nearly four dozen people dying in the violence.
In an X post on Friday, India’s army said Pakistani troops had also resorted to “numerous ceasefire violations” along the countries’ de facto border in Kashmir, a region that is divided between them but claimed in full by both.
“The drone attacks were effectively repulsed and befitting reply was given to the CFVs (ceasefire violations),” the army said, adding all “nefarious designs” would be responded to with “force”.
Pakistan Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said the Indian army statement was “baseless and misleading”, and that Pakistan had not undertaken any “offensive actions” targeting areas within Indian Kashmir or beyond the country’s border.
Islamabad had earlier denied attacking 15 Indian locations, including Pathankot city in India’s Punjab state, Srinagar in the Kashmir valley and Rajasthan state’s Jaisalmer, saying the accusations were “unfounded” and “politically motivated”.
