Pakistani says Indian drone attacked soldiers, while air defences shot down 25 drones

India fired attack drones into Pakistan on Thursday (May 8), with one wounding four soldiers, the Pakistani military said, a day after missiles struck several locations and killed more than two dozen people.

Several drones were shot down, officials said.

Tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours have soared since gunmen killed 26 people, mostly Indian Hindu tourists, in India-controlled Kashmir last month. India accused Pakistan of being behind the assault. Islamabad denies that.

Indian strikes on Wednesday killed 31 civilians, including women and children, according to Pakistani officials. More people were killed on both sides of the border in heavy exchanges of fire that followed. It was their worst confrontation since 2019, when the rivals came close to war.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has vowed to retaliate against the strikes, raising fears that the two countries could be headed toward another all-out conflict.

The relationship between India and Pakistan has been shaped by conflict and mutual suspicion, most notably in their competing claims over the Himalayan region of Kashmir. They have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, which is split between them and claimed by both in its entirety.

DRONES FIRED AT PAKISTAN

India fired several Israeli-made Harop drones at Pakistan overnight and into Thursday afternoon, according to army spokesman Lt Gen Ahmad Sharif.

Pakistani forces shot down 25, he said. A civilian was killed and another wounded when debris from a downed drone fell in Sindh province.

One drone damaged a military site near the city of Lahore and wounded four soldiers, and another fell in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, near the capital, according to Sharif.

“The armed forces are neutralising them as we speak,” Sharif said on the state-run Pakistan Television early Thursday afternoon.

“Indian drones continue to be sent into Pakistan airspace ... (India) will continue to pay dearly for this naked aggression,” he added.

India’s government said on Thursday that Pakistan had launched an air attack using “drones and missiles” overnight, before New Delhi retaliated to destroy an air defence system in Lahore.

“Pakistan attempted to engage a number of military targets ... using drones and missiles,” the defence ministry said in a statement, adding that “these were neutralised” by India’s air defence systems.

The Harop drone, produced by Israel’s IAI, is one of several in India’s inventory, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance report.

According to IAI, the Harop combines the capabilities of a drone and a missile and can operate at long ranges.

In Lahore, local police official Mohammad Rizwan said a drone was downed near Walton Airport, an airfield in a residential area about 25km from the border with India that also contains military installations.

Local media reported that two additional drones were shot down in other cities of Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital.

In Punjab’s Chakwal district, a drone crashed into farmland. Authorities have secured the wreckage and are investigating the drone’s origin and purpose.

FEARS OF ESCALATING CONFLICT

With tensions high, India evacuated thousands of people from villages near the two countries’ highly militarised frontier in Kashmir. Tens of thousands of people slept in shelters overnight, officials and residents said Thursday.

About 2,000 villagers also fled their homes in Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

Mohammad Iftikhar boarded a vehicle in Chakothi with his family on Thursday as heavy rain lashed the region. “I am helplessly leaving my home for the safety of my children and wife,” he said.

Flights remained suspended at over two dozen airports across northern and western regions in India, according to travel advisories by multiple airlines. Pakistan has suspended flights at four of its airports - Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, and Sialkot - according to the Civil Aviation Authority.

India’s foreign ministry said that 13 civilians were killed and 59 wounded the previous day during exchanges of fire across the de facto border. An Indian soldier was also killed by shelling on Wednesday, according to the Indian army, taking the total confirmed deaths on the Indian side to 14.

The foreign ministry said that all those killed were in the town of Poonch, with 59 others injured, the majority also in the town.

India on Thursday braced for Pakistan’s threatened retaliation.

In an editorial on Thursday, the Indian Express wrote “there is no reason to believe that the Pakistan Army has been chastened by the Indian airstrikes”, adding that Indian military experts were “aware that Pakistan’s armed forces are no pushover”.

“Border districts on high alert,” The Hindu newspaper headline read, adding that “India must be prepared for escalatory action” by Pakistan.

-Agencies