The plane crashed in Kashmir, site of the recent conflict between the two nuclear powers

Those who lost their lives were two pilots and a civilian. Further details about the incident were not immediately available. Meanwhile, India has reportedly fired mortar bombs into Pakistan killing civilians, including children.

India airstrikes: Pakistani retaliation will be an ‘ACT OF WAR’

The civilians were allegedly killed in Kotli village in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.

After the attack, the Indian Air Force intercepted Pakistan combat jets as they entered Kashmir airspace.

The Pakistan military claimed it has shot down two Indian aircraft inside Pakistani airspace and captured one pilot.

The Pakistan Foreign Ministry issued a statement that said: “We have no intention of escalation, but are fully prepared to do so if forced into that paradigm.”

The Taliban have said they have “deep sympathy with the government and people of Pakistan” after India’s military action.

They also said that the India-Pakistan conflict is “not good” for the region and will affect the peace process in Afghanistan.

THe Taliban added that India should not carry out further violence in Pakistan.</s>SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Indian airforce jets intercepted at least three Pakistan warplanes that crossed into the Indian side of Kashmir on Wednesday and forced them to turn tail, an Indian official said, amid heightened tensions following an Indian airstrike that targeted a militant camp inside Pakistan a day earlier.

The Pakistani jets intruded over the Bimber Gali- Noushera sector at the Line of Control, a ceasefire line that serves as the de facto border in the disputed Kashmir region, the official, who is based in the area, said.

The main airport in Srinagar, the summer capital of Jammu and Kashmir state, had been shut down for three hours, police in the city said.</s>Pakistan has shot down two Indian warplanes over the disputed territory of Kashmir, one day after New Delhi launched an airstrike against a jihadist militant camp in the country, an armed forces spokesperson said today.

One plane went down on the Indian side of the border, and the pilot of the other plane was captured by Pakistani troops, Major General Asif Ghafoor said.

Police officials in Indian-occupied Kashmir said that two Indian pilots and a civilian had died after an Indian air force plane crashed in Kashmir, but did not confirm if the plane had been shot down by Pakistani forces.

Pakistan's foreign ministry says the country's Air Force is carrying out airstrikes against Indian Kashmir from within Pakistani airspace, but claimed that this was not in 'retaliation to continued Indian belligerence'.

The ministry said the strikes on Wednesday are aimed at 'avoiding human loss and collateral damage.'

It says the Pakistanis have 'no intention of escalation, but are fully prepared to do so if forced into that paradigm. That is why we undertook the action with clear warning and in broad daylight.'

Indian officials said three Pakistani jets had also entered Indian airspace, before being intercepted and forced turned back.

Tensions between the two nuclear armed rivals have been elevated since a suicide car bombing by Pakistan-based militants in Indian-controlled Kashmir killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police on February 14.

The risk of conflict rose dramatically after India launched an air strike on what it said was a training base for the Jaish-e-Mohammed jihadist militant group that claimed credit for the suicide attack in Pakistan's Balakot region on Tuesday.

But while India said a large number of JeM fighters had been killed, Pakistani officials said the Indian airstrike was a failure and inflicted no casualties.

The Indian air force has ordered Kashmir's main airport in Srinagar along with at least three others in neighboring states to be closed because of the two incidents, an official said.

On Tuesday evening, Pakistan began shelling using heavy calibre weapons in 12 to 15 places along the de facto border in Kashmir, known as the Line of Control (LoC), a spokesman for the Indian defence forces said.

'The Indian Army retaliated for effect and our focused fire resulted in severe destruction to five posts and number of casualties,' the spokesman said.

Five Indian soldiers suffered minor wounds in the shelling that ended on Wednesday morning, he added.

'So far there are no (civilian) casualties but there is panic among people,' said Rahul Yadav, the deputy commissioner of the Poonch district where some of the shelling took place.

'We have an evacuation plan in place and if need arises we will evacuate people to safer areas,' he said.

Local officials on the Pakistani side said at least four people had been killed and seven wounded, though it was unclear if the casualties were civilian or military.

India has also continued its crackdown on suspected militants operating in Kashmir, a mountainous region that both countries claim in full but rule in part.

On Wednesday, security forces killed two Jaish militants in a gun battle, Indian police said.

Pakistan has promised to retaliate to Tuesday's air strikes, and security across India has been tightened. The two countries have fought three wars since independence from British colonial rule in 1947 and went to the brink a fourth in 2002 after a Pakistani militant attack on India's parliament.

In Mumbai, India's financial capital, there was a visible increase in security levels for a city that has suffered numerous militant attacks in the past.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke separately with the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan and urged them to avoid 'further military activity' following Tuesday's airstrike.

'I expressed to both ministers that we encourage India and Pakistan to exercise restraint, and avoid escalation at any cost,' Pompeo said in a statement on Wednesday.

'I also encouraged both ministers to prioritize direct communication and avoid further military activity,' he said.

Both China and the European Union have also called for restraint. On Wednesday New Zealand's foreign minister Winston Peters also voiced concern over the escalation in tensions.</s>NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India said its warplanes struck a militant training camp inside Pakistan on Tuesday, raising the risk of conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

The airstrikes hit a training camp of Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), the group that claimed credit for a suicide bomb attack that killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police in Kashmir on Feb. 14.

WHERE DID THE ATTACK TAKE PLACE?

The Indian air force attacked the hillside camp of JeM in Balakot in Pakistan more than 50 km (30 miles) from the border.

Balakot is about 60 km north of Abottabad, the hideout of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was killed there by U.S. forces in May 2011.

The terrain in the region is mountainous, which would have helped Indian planes take cover and hide from radar.

WHAT TIME DID THE STRIKE TAKE PLACE?

The strike took place between 3:45 a.m. and 4:04 a.m. Indian time on Tuesday, a time when the alertness of radar system operators is more likely to be lower, an air force veteran said.

WHAT EQUIPMENT DID INDIA USE FOR THE STRIKE?

India used 12 Mirage 2000 fighter jets, an airborne early warning and control (AWAC) aircraft system, a mid-air refueller and drones.

The AWAC is typically used to jam an enemy’s radar. This can be done for a very short time until the enemy’s anti-radar technology kicks in, said a former Indian airforce pilot.

The drones would help with surveillance.

The attack on Balakot used 1,000 kg bombs which can devastate a large target.

WHAT WAS THE STRATEGY EMPLOYED?

Indian air force veterans said the mission would have taken meticulous planning to take advantage of the terrain.

“For such an operation, decoy and surveillance missions are conducted to figure out when the radars are on and off. No equipment works around the clock, 24/7,” a former air force pilot said.

The jets may have flown low, hugging the terrain as much as possible to avoid the radar, which face limitations due to the mountainous nature of the region.

“In general terms, for a radar located in the valley to look up, will have severe restrictions of view because of the mountains, however optimally you place them,” said a former Indian air force marshal.

WHAT RISKS DID THE INDIAN FORCES FACE?

If Tuesday’s mission had been discovered earlier by the Pakistan military it could easily have run into trouble.

Pakistan’s army and air force have a combined arsenal of more than 400 surface-to-air missiles, according to estimates from the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).

Typically once they are alerted, it only takes about three minutes for fighter jets to respond on an incursion and get airborne, the former air marshal said.

In this case, it was likely the Pakistani security forces were only alerted after the strike, allowing Indian jets enough time to cross back into their own airspace.</s>BALAKOT, Pakistan/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India said its warplanes killed “a very large number” of fighters when they struck a militant training camp inside Pakistan on Tuesday, raising the risk of conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbors, although Pakistan officials denied there had been casualties.

Pakistan said it would respond at a time and place of its choice, with a military spokesman even alluding to its nuclear arsenal, highlighting the escalation in hostile rhetoric from both two sides since a suicide bombing in Kashmir this month.

The spokesman said a command and control authority meeting, which decides over the use of nuclear weapons, had been convened for Wednesday, adding: “You all know what that means.”

The air strike near Balakot, a town 50 km (30 miles) from the frontier, was the deepest cross-border raid launched by India since the last of its three wars with Pakistan in 1971 but there were competing claims about any damage caused.

The Indian government, facing an election in the coming months, said the air strikes hit a training camp belonging to Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), the group that claimed a suicide car bomb attack that killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police in Kashmir on Feb. 14.

Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale said “a very large number” of militants were killed in the strikes in northeast Pakistan.

“The existence of such training facilities, capable of training hundreds of jihadis, could not have functioned without the knowledge of the Pakistani authorities,” Gokhale said. Pakistan denies harboring JeM.

A senior Indian government source said that 300 militants had been killed in the strikes and that the warplanes had ventured as far as 80 km (50 miles) inside Pakistan. But no evidence was provided to back up the claims of casualties.

The government said the action was ordered as India said it had intelligence that Jaish was planning more attacks.

Pakistani officials dismissed the Indian claims, saying the Indian aircraft had dropped their bombs in a wooded area, causing no damage or casualties.

Villagers near the town of Balakot were shaken from their sleep by the air strikes. They said only one person was wounded in the attack and they knew of no fatalities.

“We saw fallen trees and one damaged house, and four craters where the bombs had fallen,” said Mohammad Ajmal, a 25-year-old who visited the site.

A resident, who did not want to give his name, said there was a nearby madrasa Islamic college run by Jaish, though most villagers were guarded in talking about any militant neighbors.

JeM is a primarily anti-India group that forged ties with al Qaeda and has been on a U.N. terrorist list since 2001. In December 2001, Jaish fighters, along with members of another Pakistan-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, attacked India’s parliament, which almost led to a fourth war.

HOSPITALS ON ALERT

There has been mounting impatience in India to avenge the Feb. 14 attack, which was the most deadly seen in Kashmir during an insurgency that has lasted three decades, and as news of the raid broke, celebrations erupted across the country.

India's Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale speaks during a media briefing in New Delhi, India, February 26, 2019. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi

“I want to assure you our country is in safe hands,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said to cheers at a rally in western India hours after the raid. “I won’t let the country down.”

Pakistan’s top civilian and military leaders rejected India’s comments that it had struck a “terrorist camp” inside Pakistan, warning that they would retaliate.

Pakistan’s National Security Committee (NSC), comprising top officials including Prime Minister Imran Khan and army chief Qamar Javed Bajwa, said Khan would “engage with global leadership to expose irresponsible Indian policy”. It also warned that “Pakistan shall respond at the time and place of its choosing” to Indian aggression.

China, Pakistan’s long-time ally, and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged both countries to exercise restraint.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement issued in Washington that he had talked to Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi separately and encouraged both countries to “exercise restraint ... and avoid further military activity.”

He said he had underscored to Qureshi “the urgency of Pakistan taking meaningful action against terrorist groups operating on its soil.”

Swaraj said she had spoken to Pompeo and Indian diplomats had met foreign ambassadors to assure them no escalation was planned.

But as fears grew that the conflict could escalate, hospitals in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province were ordered to set a quarter of beds aside for “a national cause”, officials said.

“We put all hospitals in the province on high alert due to the present situation on the border with India and issued directives to all heads of the hospitals to be prepared for any sort of emergency,” provincial secretary health Dr Farooq Jameel told Reuters.

Slideshow (3 Images)

Indian and Pakistan troops exchanged gunfire along several sectors of their contested border in Kashmir later on Tuesday and local officials on the Pakistani side said at least four people had been killed and seven wounded.

Giving the Pakistan military’s account of the Indian incursion, spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said Pakistani aircraft were patrolling and identified Indian jets on the Indian side of the border near Okara and Lahore in Punjab as well as Muzaffarabad where they crossed and were engaged. They left Pakistani airspace after only four minutes.

He denied the incursion had caused any damage, saying there was no debris, “not even a single brick” and no casualties.

“You have proved you are not a democracy, you have chosen the path of war,” he said, addressing his remarks to India.</s>The footage depicts a terrifying night time activity as fighters leap through a wall of flame in staggered groups as crowds cheer and a speaker blasts out on a megaphone. The camp was allegedly run by terrorist group Jaish e Mohammed and located at the Jaba Top, near Balakot in Pakistan. India said its warplanes killed "a very large number" of fighters when they struck the militant training camp inside Pakistan on Tuesday, raising the risk of conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours, although Pakistan officials denied there had been casualties.

Pakistan said it would respond at a time and place of its choice, with a military spokesman even alluding to its nuclear arsenal, highlighting the escalation in hostile rhetoric from both two sides since a suicide bombing in Kashmir this month. The spokesman said a command and control authority meeting, which decides over the use of nuclear weapons, had been convened for Wednesday, adding: "You all know what that means." The air strike near Balakot, a town 50 km (30 miles) from the frontier, was the deepest cross-border raid launched by India since the last of its three wars with Pakistan in 1971 but there were competing claims about any damage caused. Jaish e Muhammad was the group that claimed responsibility for a suicide car bomb attack that killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police in Kashmir on Feb. 14.

The government said the action was ordered as India said it had intelligence that Jaish was planning more attacks. Pakistani officials dismissed the Indian claims, saying the Indian aircraft had dropped their bombs in a wooded area, causing no damage or casualties. Villagers near the town of Balakot were shaken from their sleep by the air strikes. They said only one person was wounded in the attack and they knew of no fatalities. JeM is a primarily anti-India group that forged ties with al Qaeda and has been on a U.N. terrorist list since 2001. Former Pakistani foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, has accused India of “calling out war” amid escalating tensions in Kashmir. She said: “This was in some way you could consider it to be a retaliatory action for the aggression that was imposed on Pakistan in the early hours of the morning yesterday. “As we all know we are all bound by the UN charter, which protects our international boundaries, which protects our sovereign integrity. “India is claiming to come within Pakistani airspace and therefore inside our international border, disrespecting it, and taking action against what it allegedly called camps and we have evidence we have shown to both local and foreign journalists, and everyone else is welcome to come. It was just plain ground that India put its payload on before exiting Pakistani airspace. “That is what I would call a very very inflammatory action, and frankly speaking, is calling out war.”

Pakistan and India have fought three wars since independence from British colonial rule in 1947 and went to the brink a fourth in 2002 after a Pakistani militant attack on India's parliament. In Mumbai, India's financial capital, there was a visible increase in security levels for a city that has suffered numerous militant attacks in the past. In December 2001, Jaish fighters, along with members of another Pakistan-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, attacked India's parliament, which almost led to a fourth war. Two Indian Air Force warplanes were shot down escalating tensions between India and Pakistan in the Kashmir conflict. In the shocking video footage, crowds gathered around a jet on fire - believed to be one of the Indian warplanes. The Pakistani foreign ministry said: "Today, Pakistan Air Force undertook strikes across Line of Control from within Pakistani airspace." Indian warplanes entered Pakistani airspace on Wednesday after Pakistan had carried out airstrikes in Indian-occupied Kashmir, a spokesman for the Pakistan armed forces claimed. Ghafoor added that one aircraft fell on India’s side of the Kashmir, while the second came down in Pakistani-held territory, and said its pilot was captured.</s>ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan confirmed on Wednesday that it had carried out airstrikes in Indian-controlled Kashmir and shot down two Indian jets in its own airspace, capturing one of the pilots as the conflict with its nuclear-armed neighbor continued to escalate.

“Today, Pakistan Air Force undertook strikes across Line of Control from within Pakistani airspace,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

The Pakistan military said Indian jets had entered Pakistan in response and two had been shot down, with one pilot captured.</s>ISLAMABAD: Pakistan said on Wednesday (Feb 27) it shot down two Indian warplanes in its airspace over disputed Kashmir, in a dramatic escalation of a confrontation that has ignited fears of an all-out conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

One Indian pilot was captured, a Pakistani military spokesman said, adding that one aircraft had fallen in Pakistani-held Kashmir, while the other fell on the Indian side of the heavily militarised de facto border dividing the Himalayan territory.

Indian sources confirmed Pakistani fighter jets had violated airspace over Indian Kashmir, but said they were forced back over the LoC, and there was no immediate response to the claim the planes had been shot down.

The incident is the latest in a dangerous sequence of events between the two countries, whose ties have been under intense strain since a Feb 14 suicide bombing in Indian Kashmir that killed 40 troops.

New Delhi had promised to act, and on Tuesday its warplanes flew into Pakistani airspace and struck what it said was a camp of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), the militant group that claimed the Kashmir bombing.

It was India's first air strike on Pakistani soil since the neighbours fought a war in 1971 - when neither had nuclear weapons.

Islamabad, while denying the Indian strike caused any major damage or casualties, quickly vowed to retaliate, fuelling fears of a disastrous confrontation in South Asia.

"One Indian pilot arrested by troops on ground while two in the area," he added, without elaborating.

The Pakistani foreign office also released a statement saying that the air force "undertook strikes" on Wednesday - but said they were across the border, known as the Line of Control (LoC), in Indian Kashmir.

The foreign office did not elaborate on what it meant by "strikes" and did not mention shooting down planes.

It said the strikes were aimed at a "non military target", adding: "We have no intention of escalation".

Earlier on Wednesday, the Indian foreign minister sought to ease the situation by downplaying Tuesday's strike, repeating Indian claims that it had been a pre-emptive attack on JeM as the group planned further assaults.

"India does not wish to see further escalation of this situation. India will continue to act with responsibility and restraint," Sushma Swaraj said during talks in China with her counterparts from Beijing and Moscow.

The US, along with China and the European Union, have called for cooler heads to prevail.

"We encourage India and Pakistan to exercise restraint, and avoid escalation at any cost," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said after speaking with his counterparts from both countries.

Pompeo added that he stressed to Pakistan's foreign minister "the priority of de-escalating current tensions by avoiding military action, and the urgency of Pakistan taking meaningful action against terrorist groups operating on its soil."

India had been vague over the exact location of Tuesday's strike, with analysts suggesting it was signalling to Pakistan that it does not want an all-out conflict.

Both sides have said that Indian warplanes penetrated as far as Balakot, a heavily forested region in northwestern Pakistan near the border with Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

Balakot residents told AFP they heard explosions in the night, and that one person received minor injuries while no buildings were destroyed.

An AFP journalist who visited the site where the military and residents said the payload was dropped could see a large crater and trees snapped in half, and three mud houses, one with a collapsed wall, nearby.

The confrontation represents the first major foreign policy crisis for Pakistani premier Imran Khan, who is believed to be close to the powerful military and who came to power last year vowing to seek dialogue with New Delhi.

In a sign of how quickly the situation could spiral, Pakistan's military spokesman alluded to its nuclear arsenal Tuesday, saying that Khan had also convened a meeting Wednesday of the National Command Authority, the body which oversees its nuclear weapons.

Pakistan has denied involvement in the Kashmir bombing on February 14.

While India has consistently accused its neighbour of supporting extremist groups, Pakistan has equally vehemently denied any role in attacks in India and its only Muslim-majority state, Kashmir.

The Himalayan region has been divided between India and Pakistan since independence in 1947. They have fought two of their three wars over the territory.

Previously, the US and other members of the international community have acted to defuse tensions.

"If I were Washington, I'd be in overdrive making phone calls and signalling that it wants tensions to be de-escalated now," said Moeed Yusuf, an expert at the US Institute of Peace in Washington.

"The risks of letting this play out are too great."</s>The airstrikes hit a training camp of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), the group that claimed credit for a suicide car bomb attack killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police in Kashmir on Feb. 14, ratcheting up tensions between the two nuclear armed neighbours.

The action was ordered as India said it had intelligence that Jaish was planning more attacks.

"In the face of imminent danger, a preemptive strike became absolutely necessary," Vijay Gokhale, India's top diplomat, told reporters.

"The existence of such training facilities, capable of training hundreds of jihadis could not have functioned without the knowledge of the Pakistani authorities," Gokhale said.

Pakistan denies harbouring JeM, a primarily anti-India group that forged ties with al Qaeda and has been on a UN terror list since 2001. In December 2001, Jaish fighters, along with members of another Pakistan-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, launched an attack on India's parliament, which almost resulted in the two countries coing to war for a fourth time.

Gokhale said "a very large number" of militants were killed in a strike on a training base in Balakot, a town in a remote valley in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, but did not provide a precise figure for the casualties.

The commander of the camp was Maulana Yusuf Azhar, a brother-in-law of JeM leader Masood Azhar, Gokhale said.

A senior Indian government source said that 300 militants had been killed in the strikes. But no details were provided.

Pakistan downplayed the severity of airstrike, saying its own warplanes had chased off the Indian aircraft, which had released their "payload" in a forested area, causing no casualties and no serious material damage.

"Indian aircrafts intruded from Muzaffarabad sector," Pakistani military spokesman Major General Asif Ghafoor said on Twitter early on Tuesday, referring to an area in the Pakistan-held part of Kashmir.

Ghafoor said "facing timely and effective response from Pakistan Air Force", the Indian aircraft "released payload in haste, while escaping, which fell near Balakot. No casualties or damage".

Saying that more information would be released, Ghafoor tweeted four pictures of the alleged site where Indian aircraft dropped a payload near Balakot, purportedly showing a bomb crater in a forest area but no serious damage.

Pakistani villagers in the area where the Indian jets struck said they heard four loud bangs in the early hours of Tuesday but reported only one person was wounded.

"We saw fallen trees and one damaged house, and four craters where the bombs had fallen," said Mohammad Ajmal, a 25-year-old who visited the site.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Tuesday that "better sense" should prevail, warning India not to challenge Pakistan.

While Gokhale did not comment on the status of the camps, India's minister of state for agriculture, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, said on Twitter on Tuesday they had been "completely destroyed".

Indian television networks reported the airstrikes took place at 3.30 am.

Mohammed Iqbal, a resident of Mendhar, on the Indian side of the Line of Control (LoC), told Reuters that he heard jets flying through the night.

Balakot is about 50 km (30 miles) from LoC, the ceasefire line that is the de facto border in Kashmir, a Himalayan region that has been the cause of two of the three wars India and Pakistan have fought since the end of British colonial rule in 1947.

Analysts have alleged Pakistani militants have their training camps in the area, although Pakistan has always denied the presence of any such camps.

Indian markets fell on Tuesday amid concerns over increased tensions with Pakistan. The rupee weakened to 71.16 per dollar compared with Monday's close of 70.9850.

The 10-year benchmark bond yield rose to 7.61 percent compared with 7.58 percent on Monday, while the broader NSE stock index declined 1.17 percent.

Shelling across the LoC has occurred frequently over the past few years but airspace violations by jets are extremely rare.

New Delhi said in 2016, following another large attack on Indian security forces in Kashmir, that its troops crossed the LoC to carry out a "surgical strike" on suspected militant camps in Pakistan Kashmir. Islamabad denied anything serious occurred.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, facing a tight election in the next couple of months, has vowed a strong response to the Feb. 14 attack, the deadliest single assault on Indian forces in 30 years of insurgency in Jammu & Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan denied his country was involved and offered to help investigate the attack if any credible evidence was provided.</s>New Delhi/Islamabad, Feb 27 (IANS) Pakistan Minister Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed on Wednesday said that his country doesn't want war with India but warned any conflict between the two nations will be "more horrific than the World War" as Pakistan denounced the Indian air strikes and vowed to retaliate appropriately.

Tensions between the two countries after the Indian strike in Pakistan's Balakot on Tuesday - and Wednesday's tit-for-tat claims over downing each other's warplanes - were fully reflected in most of the country's leading newspapers which blamed India for creating insecurity in the region.

After Pakistan claimed to have shot down two Indian fighter jets and captured two pilots, Sheikh Rasheed, who is known for being outspoken, said: "... the Pakistani Fizayee (Pakistan Air Force) has maintained its honour... India which was yesterday celebrating (its strikes on Balakot) learnt this also happens.

"We don't want war... the Director General, ISPR, has already explained Pakistan's actions and aims... India must learn (that) any brazen measure they take will be responded to," he told media persons.

Addressing a public conference, Inter Services Public Relations Director General, Major Gen. Asif Ghafoor said that Pakistan Air Force had engaged six targets at the LoC, clarifying it was "not a retaliation" but a "demonstration of our capability, capacity and will", reported the Dawn.

"Pakistan is not pushing the environment towards war," he said, adding that Pakistan "deliberately and thoughtfully avoided escalation". He stressed Pakistan wants peace and India needs to understand war is failure of policy.

Ghafoor also said that two Indian fighters had crossed the LoC but were shot down, with one falling into Indian Kashmir and the other in Pakistan's part of Kashmir.

He denied that a PAF F-16 was shot down, saying none was used in Wednesday's operation.

Sheikh Rasheed, who is the Railway Minister, also alleged that India's moves stemmed out of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "desperation". "He has lost five state elections and is totally desperate... getting hell-bent on war.

"We have no option (but to defend ourselves)... Pakistan hai to ham hai," he said.

The Indian air strikes on the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) training camp hogged the front page on all of Pakistan's top newspapers.

The Dawn had the attack as its main story, titled "Pakistan vows response to India, 'at place & time of our choosing', along with reports on the government and opposition leaders denouncing the attack and villagers in Balakot denying anyone was injured by the Indian aircraft.

The Nation devoted its entire front page to the news. "You failed to shock us," it said, and below in a much bigger font, wrote "Be Ready For Our Surprise".

So did the The News International. "We will pick time, place to hit back" was the main story, while a box, referring to the meeting of the National Command Authority, which controls the country's nuclear arsenal, summoned by Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday, asked if India knew what NCA was.

Other stories on the front page, save one on the CPEC, were also related and included Pakistan objecting to India's presence at the upcoming OIC meeting, the ban on Indian films in Pakistan, the Pakistani political leadership's reaction to the attack and the Balakot villagers' "expose" of Indian claims.

"Bharat jawab ka intezar kare, waqt aur maqam ham tae karenge: Pakistan (India should wait for (our response), time and place we will decide) " was the banner headline in the widely-read Jang, while "Bharati taiyaron ki darandazi, Pak fizayee ne mar bhagaya (Indian airplanes barge (into Pakistan), Pakistan Air Force chases them away), " and "Bharat hamare surprise intezar kare, waqt, jagah ka intekhab khud karenge (India should wait our surprise, we will choose the time, place)", screamed the Nawaiwaqt/

"Bharati taiyaare Pakistani hadd mein ghus aaye, Pak fizayee ne bhaga diya (Indian airplanes entered Pakistani territory, chased away by PAF)," the Jamaat-e-Islami newspaper flashed.
Pakistan reports that Indian military aircraft violated their airspace near Muzaffarabad and were intercepted by Pakistan Air Force (PAF) military aircrafts. Indian Air Force aircrafts in a haste dropped their payload which fell near balakot. India claims that the incident was an airstrike on a alleged Jaish-e-Mohammed camp in Balakot in retaliation to the Pulwama attack days earlier.