India launches attacks on several sites in Pakistan

Missiles hit locations in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and in the country’s eastern Punjab province.

India has fired missiles at several locations in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir, New Delhi said, and Pakistan promised to respond to the attacks.

The strikes come amid soaring tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours after a deadly attack last month on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir that New Delhi blamed on Islamabad, which denied any involvement.

India’s military attacked “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 early on Wednesday.

“Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted. India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution,” it said.

Local residents examine a building damaged from a suspected Indian missile attack near Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir [M.D. Mughal/AP Photo]

Pakistan’s military said at least two people were killed and 12 others injured in India’s attacks.

The missiles struck locations in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and in the country’s eastern Punjab province.

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said the cities of Muzaffarabad and Kotli, both in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, were among the targets of the Indian strikes.

A Pakistani military spokesman told the broadcaster Geo that at least five locations, including two mosques, had been hit. He said Pakistan’s response was under way, without providing details.

In Punjab, missiles hit a mosque in the city of Bahawalpur, killing a child and wounding two civilians, the military said.

Following the missiles attacks, the armies of the two sides exchanged intense shelling and heavy gunfire across their frontier in disputed Kashmir in at least three places, the Reuters news agency reported, citing police and witnesses.

The burst of violence comes amid heightened tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours in the aftermath of an attack on tourists in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir last month.

India blamed Pakistan for the violence, in which 26 men were killed, and promised to respond. Pakistan denied that it had anything to do with the killings.

Nitasha Kaul, the director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy, said the strikes are “very concerning”.

“Once again, the worst affected are going to be the people in the region, the Kashmiris, who are caught between the competing and proprietorial and rival postures and attitudes of India and Pakistan,” Kaul told Al Jazeera.

Still, she said, the escalation is “not that surprising, because within India… there has been a domestic pressure building up for a more militarist response, given the fact that there is a particularly hyper-nationalist government in power.

“In that sense, sadly, this was a countdown to a greater escalation, and hopefully it won’t proceed much further beyond what has already happened with these strikes,” Kaul added.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies