India strikes Pakistan over tourist killings, Pakistan says Indian jets downed
In Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, damage from the Indian strike was visible at sunrise. Security forces surrounded a small mosque in a hill-side residential neighbourhood which had been hit, with its minaret collapsed.
All schools in Pakistani Kashmir, the national capital Islamabad, and much of Indian Kashmir and the populous Pakistani province of Punjab were ordered closed on Wednesday in the aftermath of the strikes.
Imran Shaheen, a district official in Pakistani Kashmir, said two mortars landed on a house in the town of Forward Kahuta, killing two men and injuring several women and children. In another village, a resident had been killed in firing, Shaheen said.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Islamabad was responding to the Indian attacks but did not provide details. Pakistan's populous province of Punjab declared an emergency, its chief minister said, and hospitals and emergency services were on high alert.
A Pakistani military spokesperson told broadcaster Geo two mosques were among the sites hit by India. The Pakistani defence minister told Geo all the sites were civilian and not militant camps.
He said India's claim of targeting "camps of terrorists is false".
After India's strikes, the Indian army said in a post on X on Wednesday: "Justice is served."
A spokesperson for the Indian embassy in Washington told Reuters evidence pointed "towards the clear involvement of Pakistan-based terrorists in this terror attack", referring to the April tourist killings.
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