Pakistan shot down more than two dozen Indian drones overnight, as one attacked a military target near the city of Lahore in the east of the country, causing damage and wounding soldiers, Islamabad said Thursday.
The downings follow Indian missile strikes on locations that killed 31 civilians in the Islamic republic a day earlier, according to officials.
Army spokesman Lt. Gen. Ahmad Sharif Chaudhry said Pakistan shot down 25 Israeli-made Harop drones from India at multiple locations, including the two cities of Karachi and Lahore, and that their debris is being collected.
“Indian drones continue to be sent into Pakistan airspace ... [India] will continue to pay dearly for this naked aggression,” he said, providing no further details.
The consulate said it has also received initial reports that authorities may be evacuating some areas adjacent to Lahore’s main airport, according to a statement.
India said the strikes it made on Wednesday targeted at least nine sites in Pakistan linked to planning terrorist attacks in India.
Some of these targets were in the Punjab, and most of the casualties were in this province.
Tensions between the two countries have grown since April 22, when gunmen killed 26 people, mostly Indian Hindus, in India-controlled Kashmir.
India accused Pakistan of backing the militants who carried out the attack.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in New Delhi on Wednesday night for a pre-scheduled visit.
He was scheduled to meet his Indian counterpart, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, on Thursday, with the pair slated to co-chair a joint forum on economic cooperation. However, Tehran has also offered to act as a mediator between India and Pakistan, and Araghchi was in Pakistan on Monday to meet top leaders as part of that push.
India has suggested that the group is an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a terrorist group that has in the past attacked the Indian military and police in Indian-administered Kashmir.
India administers the majority of Kashmir, but Pakistan administers the northern and western areas, and China controls territory in the east, some of which was ceded by Pakistan.
The Indian army said the military operation was named Sindoor—a Hindi word for the red vermilion powder worn by married Hindu women on their forehead and hair—in recognition of the women whose husbands were killed in front of them during the April 22 attack.
The Indian Ministry of Defence said in its statement about Operation Sindoor: “These steps come in the wake of the barbaric Pahalgam terrorist attack in which 25 Indians and one Nepali citizen were murdered. We are living up to the commitment that those responsible for this attack will be held accountable.”
