Passengers wait at Jinnah International airport after all domestic and international flights were cancelled in Karachi on May 7, 2025. (Photo by Asif Hassan / AFP)
Muzaffarabad, Pakistan: India and Pakistan exchanged heavy artillery along their contested frontier on Wednesday, after New Delhi launched deadly missile strikes in the worst violence between the nuclear-armed neighbours in two decades.
Islamabad reported 26 civilians killed by the Indian strikes and firing along the border, while New Delhi said at least eight were killed by Pakistani shelling.
India said it carried out "precision strikes at terrorist camps" at nine sites in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and in Punjab state, days after it blamed Islamabad for backing a deadly attack on the Indian-run side of the disputed region.
The Indian army said "justice is served", with New Delhi adding that its actions "have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature".
Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif accused Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi of launching the strikes to "shore up" his domestic popularity, but said that Islamabad had struck back.
"The retaliation has already started", Asif told AFP. "We won't take long to settle the score."
Asif claimed five "enemy aircraft" were downed by Pakistan, without giving further details and after backtracking on an earlier statement that Indian soldiers had been captured.
An Indian senior security source, who asked not to be named, meanwhile said three Indian fighter jets crashed on Wednesday on home territory without giving a cause.
It was not immediately clear what happened to the pilots.
Wreckage of an Indian fighter jet was seen by an AFP photographer at Wuyan -- on the Indian controlled side of Kashmir.
