India and Pakistan accused one other of launching missile and drone assaults during the night. Islamabad claimed to have shot down 25 Indian drones, while Delhi said it had prevented raids on over a dozen cities. Following 31 fatalities from Indian missile attacks on Pakistan in the early hours of Wednesday, the accusations made by both sides represented a sharp escalation of the crisis between the two nuclear-armed countries.

India claimed that the attacks were a direct response to an assault that murdered 25 Hindu tourists and a guide late last month in Indian-administered Kashmir. Through Islamist terrorist groups it has long been accused of supporting, India has accused Pakistan of direct participation in the assaults.

At a press conference, Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, Pakistan’s military spokesperson, claimed that India had “apparently lost the plot” and accused it of committing “yet another blatant military act of aggression” by launching dozens of drones over major cities overnight, including Rawalpindi, the location of Pakistan’s military headquarters.

He said that 25 drones had been shot down by Pakistan’s air defense systems and that four Pakistani soldiers had been hurt in an altercation with another Indian aerial gadget. He claimed that a civilian perished in a drone-related event in the Miano region of Sindh, which borders India, but he did not provide any further information. According to Chaudhry, Pakistan views the drones as a “serious provocation” by India, and the military and police are gathering drone debris.

“The military is extremely vigilant and neutralizing them as we speak, and this blatant aggression is still occurring,”

he stated.

India accused Pakistan of attempting to strike 15 military sites in the north and west, including the towns of Amritsar, Srinagar, and Chandigarh, with drones and missiles. It claimed that all of the assaults were halted by its air defence systems. The air defence system above the Pakistani city of Lahore has been “neutralised,” according to India’s defence minister.

“Any attack on military targets in India will invite a suitable response,”

the statement stated.

Chaudhry called the claims that Pakistan had launched any strikes inside India “phantom strikes” and told India,

“You cannot cook up any story you want.”

Pakistan disputed the claims. Pakistan has not yet launched aggressive retribution against India for the missile and drone assaults, but it is certain that action will now be done, a top Pakistani security official told the Guardian.

The official declared, “We have not launched any drone or missile attacks inside India or any military installations.” “Indian officials are spreading false information. The offensive reaction is about to occur. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, India’s foreign minister, issued a warning on Thursday that India will retaliate militarily against Pakistan. He assured a visiting Iranian delegation that “there should be no doubt that there will be a very, very firm response if there are military attacks on us.”

With nine targets, including four in Pakistan’s Punjab area, India launched the largest military assault on Pakistan in decades on Wednesday. Shehbaz Sharif, the prime minister of Pakistan, declared late on Wednesday night that he would “avenge each and every drop of blood of our martyrs.”

Pakistan cancelled all police leave and ordered border security personnel to fire on sight for any suspicious activity, placing India’s border provinces of Punjab and Rajasthan on high alert for a retaliatory strike. In Rajasthan, schools close to the border were closed, exercises were practised, and evacuation preparations were made; in Punjab, the Gurdaspur district was placed under a total blackout on Thursday night. India said that anti-drone systems had been turned on close to the border.

Airports were closed, and flights were halted in both nations. All flights from the airports in Karachi, Lahore, and Sialkot, Pakistan, were halted. Up until Saturday, more than 20 regional airports in northern India were shut down.

The provincial health administration of Pakistan’s Sindh area, which borders India, issued a notification declaring a state of emergency in all hospitals and health institutions and cancelling the leave of all medical workers and support staff.

Sharif called India’s attacks an “act of war”, and senior army officials and government ministers vowed Pakistan would respond. However, by Thursday morning, the nature of that response remained unclear.

Pakistan’s army leader, Gen. Asim Munir, is under increasing public pressure to demonstrate strength against India, and it is generally accepted that he will make any decisions about the country’s military response to India.

The intense cross-border fire between India and Pakistan lasted into a second night along the disputed boundary that separates the disputed territory of Kashmir. Locals were still being evacuated from the area, and reports indicated that at least one Indian soldier and eleven civilians had been killed.

In an effort to de-escalate the situation, international diplomatic efforts persisted. Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian foreign minister, arrived in Delhi on Thursday morning after pledging to act as a mediator between the two nations. In addition, the Saudi foreign minister visited Jaishankar on his unexpected visit to India on Thursday morning.