India said early Wednesday that it had conducted several airstrikes on Pakistan, hailing a victory in the name of vengeance for the terrorist attack that killed 26 civilians in Kashmir last month.
But evidence was also growing that the Indian forces may have taken heavy losses during the operation. At least two aircraft were said to have gone down in India and the Indian-controlled side of Kashmir, according to three officials, local news reports, and accounts of witnesses who had seen the debris of two.
The Indian government said its forces had struck nine sites in Pakistan and on Pakistan’s side of the disputed Kashmir region, in what it described as retaliation for a terrorist attack that killed 26 civilians in Kashmir. Pakistani military officials said that more than 20 people had been killed and dozens injured after six places were hit on the Pakistani side of Kashmir and in Punjab Province. Residents of the Indian side of Kashmir said at least 10 people had been killed in shelling from the Pakistani side since India carried out its strikes.
While India in recent years has struck Pakistan-administered Kashmir and areas close to it during periods of rising tensions, the attack on Wednesday on Punjab, in Pakistani territory outside the contested region, was an escalation in the conflict between the two nuclear-armed countries.
India said on Wednesday that it had struck Pakistan after gathering evidence “pointing towards the clear involvement of Pakistan-based terrorists” in last month’s attack on civilians in a tourist area in Kashmir. It said that its military actions had been “measured, responsible and designed to be nonescalatory in nature.” It added that it had targeted only “known terror camps.”
In its own statement on Wednesday, the Pakistani government called the Indian strikes “an unprovoked and blatant act of war” that had “violated Pakistan’s sovereignty.” Pakistani military officials said they had begun a “measured but forceful” response and claimed that they had struck five Indian aircraft — a claim that could not be fully verified.
One Indian official confirmed the crash of three aircraft, but cautioned that the reasons were not clear. Two other Indian security officials confirmed reports that some Indian aircraft had gone down, but would not elaborate on the details. They all spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of military action.
News channels and witnesses said at least one aircraft had gone down on the Indian side of Kashmir. A second aircraft was reported to have been downed in the Indian state of Punjab, according to Indian news reports and a witness account.
Analyzing witness photos from one wreckage site, in the village of Wuyan in India-administered Kashmir, a weapons researcher identified the debris as an external fuel tank for a plane. The analyst, Trevor Ball, of Armament Research Services, said the tank was likely from a Rafale or Mirage fighter jet, both of which are made by the French manufacturer Dassault Aviation and used by India. Mr. Ball could not confirm whether the tank had come from an aircraft that had been hit by enemy fire.
Residents and local elders in the areas of Uri and Poonch, on the Indian-controlled side of Kashmir, reported that Pakistani shelling since the cross-border strikes had killed at least ten people, wounded at least 50 and damaged several houses.
Manoj Sinha, the lieutenant governor of India’s Kashmir region, said he had ordered that villagers be moved to safer locations.
At the White House, President Trump called the escalation between India and Pakistan “a shame.”
“We just heard about it,” he said of the Indian strikes. “They’ve been fighting for a long time. I just hope it ends very quickly.” Shortly after the strikes, the Indian national security adviser, Ajit Doval, briefed Secretary of State Marco Rubio on the military actions, according to Indian officials.
A spokesman for the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, called for restraint from the two sides, adding, “The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan.”
But the scale and nature of the attacks by India are likely to provoke a “significant retaliation” by Pakistan, said Asfandyar Mir, a senior fellow in the South Asia program at the Stimson Center in Washington.
After attacks against Indian security forces in Indian-administered Kashmir in 2016 and 2019, India conducted more limited strikes in Pakistani-controlled territory. But this time, India “has crossed two significant thresholds in its military action” by hitting a large number of sites in Pakistan and striking the Pakistani heartland in Punjab, Mr. Mir said.
Indian military officials said that all of the country’s air-defense units along the border had been activated, India’s public broadcaster reported. Airlines said that several airports, including the one in Srinagar, the capital of the Indian side of Kashmir, had been closed to civilian travel.
Residents of Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistani part of Kashmir, reported hearing jets flying above. They said that a site in a rural area near Muzaffarabad that was once used by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group based in Pakistan, appeared to have been targeted in the strikes.
A spokesman for the Pakistani Army said that five other places had also come under attack.
They included Bahawalpur, in Punjab Province, Pakistan, the site of a religious seminary associated with Jaish-e-Mohammad, another Pakistan-based militant group; Kotli and Bagh in Pakistan-administered Kashmir; and Shakargarh and Muridke in Punjab. Lashkar-e-Taiba is believed to have a presence in Muridke
Indian forces are calling their military operation Sindoor, a reference to the red vermilion that Hindu women wear in their hair after marriage. It refers to the gruesome nature of the terrorist attack two weeks ago, in which many wives saw their husbands killed in front of them.
“Victory to Mother India,” Rajnath Singh, India’s defense minister, wrote on X.
In the April 22 attack, gunmen opened fire on tourists in the Indian-administered region of Kashmir, killing 26 and injuring more than a dozen others.
The terrorist attack was one of the worst against Indian civilians in decades, and India was quick to suggest that Pakistan, its neighbor and archenemy, had been involved. The two countries have fought several wars over Kashmir, a region that they have split but that each claims in whole.
The Pakistani government has denied involvement in the attack, and India has presented little evidence to support its accusations. Still, soon after the onslaught, India announced a flurry of punitive measures against Pakistan, including threatening to disrupt the flow of a major river system that supplies it with water.
In Kashmir, Indian forces began a sweeping crackdown, arresting hundreds, as they continued their hunt for the attackers. And India and Pakistan have repeatedly exchanged small-arms fire along the border in the days after the attack.
Kashmir’s fate has been undecided since the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, with both countries claiming the territory. They have fought three wars over Kashmir, and the region has remained one of the world’s most militarized areas. Since the last full war, in 1999, the rivals have repeatedly come to the brink of another one, including in 2019, when a bombing in Kashmir killed at least 40 Indian soldiers.
That bombing, which was claimed by the militant Islamist group Jaish-e-Mohammed, prompted an Indian airstrike inside Pakistan, and an Indian jet was shot down. Tensions between the countries eased when Pakistan released the pilot.
Reporting was contributed by Zia ur-Rehman, Anupreeta Das, Showkat Nanda and Aric Toler.
Mujib Mashal is the South Asia bureau chief for The Times, helping to lead coverage of India and the diverse region around it, including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan.
Hari Kumar covers India, based out of New Delhi. He has been a journalist for more than two decades.
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