AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi on February 27 expressed concern for the Indian pilot who was "missing in action" and said Pakistan must respect its obligations under the Geneva Conventions.

"Our prayers are with the brave IAF pilot & his family in this very difficult time.

Under Article 3 of Geneva Conventions every party is required to treat prisoners humanely. Pakistan must respect its obligations towards the IAF pilot, regardless of ongoing circumstances," Owaisi tweeted.

Pakistan has used its Air Force to target military installations in India in response to Indian counter-terrorism operations but their attempts were foiled successfully though one Indian pilot is "missing in action", External Affairs Ministry said on February 27.

In a very brief press statement, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar, accompanied by Air Vice Marshal R G K Kapoor, also said details are being ascertained about Pakistan's claim of having captured one Indian pilot.</s>Top officials on Wednesday said one Pakistan Air Force's F-16 jet that violated Indian air space in Nowshera sector of Jammu and Kashmir’s Rajouri district was shot down in retaliatory firing, three kilometres within Pakistan territory in Lam valley, along the Line of Control.

The jets were immediately pushed back by Indian aircraft on air patrol, a top official has said. Police sources have also said that Pakistani jets dropped bombs on their way out at Nadian, Lam Jhangar, and Kerri in Rajouri district and Hamirpur area of Bhimber Galli in Poonch of the Indian territory.

A parachute was spotted going down across the Line of Control but the condition of the PAF pilot is not known.

This action comes a day after the Indian Air Force carried out air strikes in the wee hours of Tuesday morning on Jaish-e-Mohammad terror camps in Balakot, Muzaffarabad and Chakoti.

Pakistan military, in the meanwhile, has claimed to have arrested an Indian pilot after shooting down two IAF aircraft. Major General Asif Ghafoor, the head of the media wing of Pakistan’s military, claimed in a tweet that one of the aircraft fell in Jammu and Kashmir, while the other fell in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. He also claimed that the Indian Air Force had crossed the Line of Control once again on Wednesday morning.

The Indian jets are still patrolling the area.

Where is Nowshera and Lam valley?

Soon as reports about the Pakistani fighter jet spread, there were confusions about where exactly was Nowshera and Lam valley. Nowshera, where the air space violation took place, is in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district, about 10 kilometre North of Srinagar's Lal Chowk. It lies close to the LoC. This shouldn't be confused with Nowshera, the primary city in Nowshera district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan.

Lam Valley, on the other hand, lies in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK). Places near Lam Valley include Jhangar, Nadian, Kerri, Mendhar, Bhimber Galli in Poonch and other places.

Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said the Pakistani warplane was shot down by the Indian Air Force after it attempted to target military establishments in Jammu and Kashmir.

It was earlier reported that three Pakistani Air Force jets attempted to violate the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch and Nowshera sectors but were chased away by Indian combat air patrol team of Sukhoi SU-30s.

The Pakistan government later claimed in a statement that its air force undertook strikes on the Indian side of the Line of Control “from within Pakistani airspace” and for "self-defence". It denied that the F-16 was shot down.

Firstpost is now on WhatsApp. For the latest analysis, commentary and news updates, sign up for our WhatsApp services. Just go to Firstpost.com/Whatsapp and hit the Subscribe button.</s>Pakistan on Wednesday said that its jets crossed the Line of Control (LoC) to undertake strikes in India for “self defence”.

Indian officials said Pakistani fighter jets on Wednesday violated Indian air space in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch and Nowshera sectors but were pushed back by Indian aircraft.

The Pakistani jets dropped bombs while returning, officials said.

There were no immediate reports of any casualties or damage.

Pakistan Foreign Office said in a statement said:

Today, Pakistan Air Force undertook strikes across Line of Control from within Pakistani airspace. This was not a retaliation to continued Indian belligerence.

Pakistan has therefore, taken strikes at non military target, avoiding human loss and collateral damage. Sole purpose being to demonstrate our right, will and capability for self defence. We 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. For the last few years, India has been trying to establish what they call ‘a new normal’ a thinly veiled term for doing acts of aggression at whatever pretext they wish on a given day.

If India is striking at so called terrorist backers without a shred of evidence, we also retain reciprocal rights to retaliate against elements that enjoy Indian patronage while carrying out acts of terror in Pakistan. We do not wish to go to that route and wish that India gives peace a chance and to resolve issues like a mature democratic nation.</s>ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's prime minister pledged on Thursday his country would release a captured Indian fighter pilot, a move that could help defuse the most serious confrontation in two decades between the nuclear-armed neighbors over the disputed region of Kashmir.

Prime Minister Imran Khan made the announcement in an address to both houses of Parliament, saying he tried to reach his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Wednesday with a message that he wants to de-escalate tensions.

"We are releasing the Indian pilot as a goodwill gesture tomorrow," Khan told lawmakers. He did not say whether the release was conditional.

An Indian government official, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak publicly, warned that even if the pilot is returned home, New Delhi would not hesitate to strike its neighbor first if it feared a similar militant attack was looming. Modi earlier in the day warned that "India's enemies are conspiring to create instability in the country through terror attacks."

Khan also said that he had feared Wednesday night that India might launch a missile attack, but the situation was later defused. He did not elaborate.

"Pakistan wants peace, but it should not be treated as our weakness," Khan said "The region will prosper if there is peace and stability. It is good for both sides."

Meanwhile, fresh skirmishes erupted Thursday between Indian and Pakistani soldiers along the so-called Line of Control that divides disputed Kashmir between the two nuclear-armed rivals.

India's army said Pakistani soldiers were targeting nearly two dozen Indian forward points with mortar and gunfire. Lt. Col. Devender Anand, an Indian army spokesman, called it an "unprovoked" violation of the 2003 cease-fire accord between the two countries. He said Indian soldiers were responding to ongoing Pakistani attacks along the highly militarized de facto frontier.

A young woman was killed and two others, including an off-duty soldier, were wounded in the shelling in Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said.

World powers have called on the nations to de-escalate the tensions gripping the contested region since a Feb. 14 suicide bombing killed over 40 Indian paramilitary troops in Indian-controlled Kashmir. India responded with a pre-dawn airstrike on Tuesday inside Pakistan, the first such raid since the two nations' 1971 war over territory that later became Bangladesh.

The situation then escalated further with Wednesday's aerial skirmish, which saw Pakistan say it shot down two Indian aircraft, one of which crashed in Pakistan-held part of Kashmir and the other in India-controlled Kashmir. Pakistan later aired a video of a man it identified as the Indian pilot.

India acknowledged one of its MiG-21s, a Soviet-era fighter jet, was "lost" in skirmishes with Pakistan. India's Ministry of External Affairs said late Wednesday that it "strongly objected to Pakistan's vulgar display of an injured personnel of the Indian Air Force," and that it expects his immediate and safe return.

India also said it shot down a Pakistani warplane, something Islamabad denied.

Kashmir has been divided but claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan since almost immediately after the two countries' creation in 1947. They have fought three wars against each other, two directly dealing with the disputed region.

Both Indian and Pakistani officials reported small-arms fire and shelling along the Kashmir region into Thursday morning. There were no reported casualties.

Authorities in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir closed all schools and educational institutions in the region and are urged parents to keep their children at home amid mounting tension with neighboring India. Pakistan's airspace remained closed for a second day Thursday, snarling air traffic.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Faisal acknowledged his country received a "dossier" from India about the Feb. 14 attack. He refused to provide details about the information that New Delhi has shared.

World leaders weighing in on the tension included President Donald Trump, who began remarks at a news conference Thursday in Vietnam after meeting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un by focusing on India and Pakistan.

"I think hopefully that's going to be coming to an end," Trump said, without elaborating. "It's been going on for a long time — decades and decades. There's a lot of dislike, unfortunately, so we've been in the middle trying to help them both out, see if we can get some organization and some peace, and I think probably that's going to be happening."

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi also said Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia's minister of state for foreign affairs, planned to come to Islamabad with an urgent message from the kingdom's powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Modi, in his first remarks since the pilot's capture, gave a rallying speech ahead of elections in the coming months.

"Our defense forces are serving gallantly at the border," he told tens of thousands gathered across the country to listen to him in a videoconference from New Delhi. "The country is facing challenging times and it will fight, live, work and win unitedly."

Just weeks before general elections are due in India, the head of Modi's party in India's Karnataka state, B.S. Yeddyurappa, said India's pre-dawn airstrikes in Pakistan on Tuesday would help the party at the polls.

The violence Wednesday marked the most serious escalation of the long-simmering conflict since 1999, when Pakistan's military sent a ground force into Indian-controlled Kashmir at Kargil. That year also saw an Indian fighter jet shoot down a Pakistani naval aircraft, killing all 16 on board.

This latest wave of tension between the two rivals first began after the militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad claimed responsibility for a Feb. 14 suicide bombing on Indian paramilitary forces on the Indian side of Kashmir that killed more than 40 troops.

India long has accused Pakistan of cultivating such militant groups to attack it. Pakistan has said it was not involved in that attack and was ready to help New Delhi in the investigation.

Associated Press writers Aijaz Hussain in Srinagar, India; Ashok Sharma and Emily Schmall in New Delhi; Roshan Mughal in Muzafarabad, Pakistan; Adam Schreck in Hanoi, Vietnam, and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.</s>This story is from February 28, 2019

Representative image

NEW DELHI: The government said that IAF had "successfully foiled" an attempt by Pakistan to "target military installations" across the LoC by shooting down one of its jets - probably an F-16 - but also admitted it had lost a MiG-21 'Bison' fighter and that one of the Indian pilots had gone "missing while in action".Pakistan said the pilot, Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, was in its custody. It also released several videos, in one of which he was seen being assaulted by civilians upon landing in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir after ejecting from his MiG-21.Pakistan claimed its fighters "locked on" to six Indian military targets, ranging from the brigade headquarters at Bhimber Gali to an ammunition dump at Narian, to demonstrate its "capability and resolve" but chose to drop bombs in open spaces to avoid any casualties.India disputed Pakistan's account that the latter's jets could have hit Indian military assets but chose to spare them, and described PAF's action as an unprovoked aggression that was thwarted by the scrambling of MiG-21s to intercept the Pakistani fighters. In the ensuing dogfight, one of the MiG-21s fired an R-73 missile to down a Pakistani fighter, while a MiG-21 was hit either by a missile fired by a Pakistani fighter or a surface-to-air missile.Pakistan also claimed through the day - an assertion endorsed by Pakistani PM Imran Khan in his televised address - that it had another Indian pilot in custody, who was admitted in its military hospital due to injuries, after shooting down two IAF fighters in the aerial engagement. But it backtracked in the evening, saying it had "only one pilot in Pakistan army's custody", who was being treated as per "norms of military ethics" .Indian authorities said Pakistan probably mistook the pilot of its fighter jet, which had been shot down, for one belonging to the IAF. "The downed Pakistani fighter was in all probability an F-16 but it cannot be conclusively ascertained. Our Army troops saw it falling from the sky towards the Lam-Khuretta area in POK, with the pilot ejecting out. The Pakistan army probably saw two parachutes, one of the Pakistani pilot and the other of Varthaman, and thought two IAF pilots had been shot down," a source said.The heightened tensions in the morning led Pakistan to shut down its entire airspace, with India too temporarily suspending its civilian air traffic in its northern region. In the afternoon, India summoned the acting high commissioner of Pakistan to issue a strong demarche against the "unprovoked act of aggression by Pakistan", including violation of the Indian air space by PAF and targeting of Indian military posts."It was clearly conveyed that India reserves the right to take firm and decisive action to protect its national security, sovereignty and territorial integrity against any act of aggression or cross-border terrorism ," the ministry of external affairs said.</s>will set free captured IAF Wing Friday as a peace gesture, its announced Thursday, a move that came just hours after his said the Pakistani leader is ready for telephonic talks with his Indian counterpart to de-escalate Indo-Pak tensions.

The surprise announcement also came on the heels of sending a strong message to rejecting the possibility of any deal for securing the release of the and demanding his unconditional and immediate repatriation. sources also emphatically said the cannot be a

"In our desire for peace, I announce that tomorrow (Friday), and as a first step to open negotiations, will be releasing the in our custody," Khan said. The announcement during a joint session of Parliament was greeted by thumping of desks by lawmakers.

Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who had earlier in the day said Pakistan is willing to consider returning the pilot if it leads to "de-escalation" of tensions with India, said Khan is ready to talk to Modi to de-escalate Indo-Pak tensions.

" is ready to talk to on the telephone and ready to extend an invitation of peace. Is Modi ready?" he told Geo

The pilot bailed out and landed in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir(PoK) after his was brought down during a fierce aerial engagement on Wednesday with Pakistan Air Force(PAF) fighters on the Line of Control(LoC) in

As international pressure mounted on and Pakistan to show restraint and deescalate tensions, American said the US has some "reasonably attractive news" from the two countries 



"We have been involved in trying to help them ( and Pakistan) stop and we have some reasonably decent news," he said in his opening statement at a press conference at the end of his second summit with North Korean leader in

"I think hopefully that (tensions) could be coming to an end, it has been going on for a long time," said Trump amid efforts by backchannel interlocutors considered close to the two countries to defuse Indo-Pak tensions that spiked after the Pulwama suicide attack by a JeM bomber on February 14 in which 40 CRPF jawans were killed.

Qureshi said Saudi will visit on Thursday "carrying an important message" from the Saudi

In New Delhi, Saudi Arabia's to India called on Modi.

on Wednesday carried out a retaliatory strike across the Line of Control(LoC) in and attempted to target military installations, a day after Indian struck inside Pakistan, destroying the biggest terrorist training camp of the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM).

(FO) said Wing Varthaman was safe and sound.

In Delhi, top government sources said the IAF pilot cannot be a and that India will not strike any deal with Pakistan for his release.

The sources said India has not sought any consular access to Wing Varthaman as his immediate release is "non-negotiable" and that the onus on deescalating tension between the two countries lies entirely on

"We want him back unharmed, unconditionally and immediately. He is not a There is no question of any deal with Pakistan on his return," the sources added.

The father of Wing Commander Varthaman said he was proud of his son's bravery and thanked the people for their support and good wishes.

In a statement, S Varthaman, a retired Air Marshal, referred to a purported video of his son after his capture, and said he spoke like a "true soldier" despite being in captivity and that he was praying he would not get tortured in the neighbouring country and return home "safe and sound".

The government sources when asked on talks with Khan said Pakistan must first take "concrete and specific anti-terror steps".

They also said briefed envoys of several countries including from China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the on PAF targeting Indian military installations, in an aggressive behaviour resulting in escalation in tensions.

The sources indicated that Pakistan's efforts to link the release of the pilot with "de-escalation" of tensions with India has not gone down well in New

They said the has to walk the talk on investigating the Pulwama attack and that India wants immediate, credible and verifiable action against terrorists and their proxies.

Pakistan has to take concrete steps against JeM, the sources said when asked about Khan's offer of talks with India, the sources said, adding Pakistan was deliberately whipping up war psychosis and trying to mislead the international community on the situation.

Denouncing Pakistan's breach of the Line of Control, they said their "specifically targeted Indian military facilities, while we targeted only JeM terror camp".

About Wednesday's aerial raid by Pakistan, the sources said over 20 aircraft flew towards Indian air space out of which a few crossed the Line of Control and targeted Indian military facilities.

They fired guided bombs and narrowly missed our military installations, the sources said, rejecting Khan's remarks that the Pakistani jets did not target Indian defence bases.

officials said Pakistan's claims that its air force did not target the Indian military installations during Wednesday's air intrusion were false.

They said the Pakistani jets clearly targeted multiple military installations in Naushera and Rajaouri sector, but their attempts were foiled by the combat patrol team of the

also shelled civilian areas and forward posts in six sectors along the LoC in Poonch and Rajouri districts Thursday in which one woman was killed and a jawan injured, drawing heavy retaliation from the Indian forces, an said.</s>ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan’s chief military spokesman said on Wednesday the Pakistani army currently had only one downed Indian pilot in custody, having previously said two pilots had been captured, one of whom was wounded.

“There is only one pilot under Pakistan Army’s custody,” Major General Asif Ghafoor said in a tweet above a photograph apparently showing the captured pilot, who was shot down earlier in the day after responding to a Pakistani air strike in Indian-controlled Kashmir.</s>NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Indian military officials said on Thursday they welcomed Pakistan’s planned return of a captured pilot, but refused to confirm they would de-escalate a conflict between the two nuclear powers.

The pilot, identified as Wing Commander Abhinandan, became the human face of the flare-up over the contested region of Kashmir following the release of videos showing him being captured and later held in custody.

“We are happy our pilot is being released,” said Air Vice Marshal RGK Kapoor, at a joint news conference of India’s three armed forces on Thursday evening.

He did not say when asked by reporters if India considered the return a de-escalation in the conflict.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan said the pilot would be released on Friday, to the relief of many Indians, even as his military reported that four Pakistani civilians had been killed by India firing across the disputed border in Kashmir.

“As a peace gesture we will be releasing him tomorrow,” Khan told Pakistan’s parliament on Thursday afternoon. Lawmakers thumped their desks in response.

“We will celebrate his release tomorrow,” said Vinay Bhardwaj, 34, a plumber in Nawshera, a border town in Indian-controlled Kashmir. “People are very happy about that here.”

The United States, China, European Union and other powers have urged restraint from the two nations, as tensions escalated following a suicide car bombing that killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police in Indian-controlled Kashmir on Feb. 14.

The Muslim-majority Himalayan region has been at the heart of more than 70 years of animosity, since the partition of the British colony of India into the separate countries of Muslim Pakistan and majority Hindu India.

It is divided between India, which rules the Kashmir Valley and the Hindu-dominated region around Jammu city, Pakistan, which controls a wedge of territory in the west, and China, which holds a thinly populated high-altitude area in the north.

On Tuesday, India said it hit a training camp for a Pakistan-based group who claimed responsibility for the suicide attack, and a senior government source told reporters that 300 militants had been killed.

Pakistan denies this, saying the attack was a failure and no one died, with bombs dropped on a largely empty hillside. It denies any militant camp was in the area. Local people said they had seen no sign of major casualties or significant damage, with only one man known to have been slightly hurt by the bombs.

Asked about the damage caused by Indian warplanes in Tuesday’s air strike, Kapoor said it was premature to provide details about casualties. But they said they had “credible” evidence of the damage inflicted on the camp by the air strikes.

“Whatever we intended to destroy, we did,” he said.

Tuesday’s escalation marked the latest deterioration in relations between the two countries. As recently as November, Khan had spoken of “mending ties” with India.

Khan’s decision to release the pilot came after several countries offered diplomatic assistance to mediate between two countries, that have gone to war three times since their independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said after Khan’s announcement that he had spoken to the leaders of both countries and urged them to avoid “any action that would escalate and greatly increase risk”.

Earlier, U.S. President Trump said he expected “reasonably decent news” regarding the conflict between India and Pakistan, adding that the United States was trying to mediate.

“They have been going at it and we have been involved in trying to have them stop,” Trump said in Hanoi, where he was attending a summit with North Korea’s leader.

“We have been in the middle trying to help them both out.”

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also offered to facilitate talks between the two sides.

Khan’s office said the prime minister had spoken to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and the United Arab Emirates Crown Prince Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan and that both had appreciated his willingness to find a peaceful resolution to the crisis.

Khan has already called for talks with India to prevent the risk of a “miscalculation” between their militaries.

Earlier on Thursday, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who faces a general election in a matter of months, told a rally of supporters that India would unite against its enemies.

“The world is observing our collective will. It is necessary that we shouldn’t do anything that allows our enemy to raise a finger at us,” he said, in his first remarks since the downing of planes on Wednesday.

The Chinese government’s top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, spoke by telephone with Pakistan’s foreign minister and expressed “deep concern”.

The United States, Britain and France proposed the United Nations Security Council blacklist Masood Azhar, the head of Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad, the group that claimed responsibility for the Feb. 14 attack. China is likely to be oppose the move.

As a precaution amid the increased military activity, Pakistan has shut its airspace, forcing commercial airlines to reroute. Thai Airways International announced on Thursday that it had canceled flights to Pakistan and Europe, which left thousands of passengers stranded in Bangkok.

Both countries said they downed enemy jets on Wednesday, though each disputed the claims of the other side, and each accused the other of breaching cease fire agreements.

Indian and Pakistani troops traded fire along the contested border in Kashmir on at least three occasions on Thursday, with the firing instigated by Pakistan every time, according to New Delhi. Pakistan said the ceasefire violations were by India.

Pakistan’s military said four civilians had been killed and two wounded in what it called a “deliberate” attack by India during the past 48 hours. A civilian on the Indian side of the border was killed in the firing on Thursday, an Indian official said.

Troops from India and Pakistan first exchanged fire on Thursday in the Poonch district for over an hour at 6 a.m., according to a statement from the Indian army. Pakistan said the firing began overnight.

Aijaz Ahmad, a resident in the Indian-controlled portion of the district, said he could hear heavy firing on Thursday afternoon.

“Loud sounds of mortar shells are being heard from a distance. Shops ... are open but there is a lot of tension,” he said.

India is building more than 14,000 bunkers for families in Jammu and Kashmir state living close to the border, hoping to keep them safe near their homes rather than evacuate them.

With a general election due in India by May, a surge in nationalism from any conflict with Pakistan could become a key factor, potentially favoring Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“This has brought a pro-Modi wave all through the country,” B.S. Yeddyurappa, a BJP leader in the southern state of Karnataka, told reporters. “The effect of this will be seen in the elections.”</s>MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan shot down two Indian warplanes Wednesday in the disputed region of Kashmir and captured a pilot, its military said, raising tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals to a level unseen in 20 years.

The dramatic escalation came hours after Pakistan said mortar shells fired by Indian troops from across the frontier dividing the two sectors of Kashmir killed six civilians and wounded several others. Earlier Tuesday, Indian warplanes had struck inside Pakistan for the first time since a war in 1971.

Both countries have ordered airstrikes over the last two days, the first time in history that two nuclear-armed powers have done so. Their ground forces have also exchanged fire in more than a dozen locations.

The Indian air force shut Kashmir's main airport in Srinagar along with at least three others in neighboring states because of the incidents, an official said. Pakistan also closed its airspace.

In a televised speech, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan sought to defuse the situation.

"I ask India: with the weapons you have and the weapons we have, can we really afford a miscalculation?" he said. "Let's sit and settle this with talks."

Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Asif Ghafoor tweeted that "only one pilot" is in Pakistan's custody after earlier reports said they had captured two. The tweet included a picture of a mustachioed man identified as the Indian pilot sipping tea.

An army official who could not be identified under briefing rules said the confusion came from soldiers on the ground. While two planes were shot down, he said one pilot landed inside Pakistani-controlled Kashmir and the other on the Indian side of the disputed border.

Despite Geneva Convention rules prohibiting the public display of prisoners , the military circulated a video of the Indian pilot, who was recorded saying he was being well treated and praising the Pakistan military.

India confirmed that one of its Mig-21 fighter aircraft had been "lost" in an engagement with intruding Pakistani aircraft in the Indian portion of Kashmir.

Meanwhile, Indian police said officials recovered four bodies from the wreckage of an Indian air force chopper that crashed in Indian-controlled sector of Kashmir. It wasn't immediately clear if that crash was related to Pakistan's claim of shooting down a second Indian aircraft.

Kashmir is split between Pakistan and India and claimed by both in its entirety.

Though Pakistani and Indian troops in Kashmir often trade fire, the latest civilian casualties on the Pakistani side came a day after tensions escalated sharply following a pre-dawn airstrike and incursion by India on Tuesday that New Delhi said targeted a terrorist training camp in northwestern Pakistan.

Tensions have increased between the two countries since Jaish-e-Mohammad claimed responsibility for the Feb. 14 suicide bombing of a convoy of India's paramilitary forces in the Indian portion of Kashmir that killed 40 soldiers.

Pakistan has said it was not involved in the attack and was ready to help New Delhi in the investigations.

On Wednesday, Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told state-run Pakistan Television he was in touch with his counterparts across the world about the "Indian aggression," adding that New Delhi had endangered peace in the region by launching an airstrike on Pakistan.

The Foreign Ministry added that the strikes were aimed at "avoiding human loss and collateral damage."

In New Delhi, India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said Wednesday her country does not wish to see further escalation of the situation with Pakistan and that it will continue to act with restraint.

She said the limited objective of India's strike inside Pakistan on a terrorist training camp Tuesday was to act decisively against the terrorist infrastructure of Jaish-e-Mohammad, to pre-empt another terror attack in India.

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.</s>ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's prime minister pledged on Thursday his country would release a captured Indian jetfighter pilot the following day, a move that could help defuse the most-serious confrontation in two decades between the nuclear-armed neighbors over the disputed region of Kashmir.

Prime Minister Imran Khan made the announcement in an address to both houses of Parliament, saying he tried to reach his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Wednesday with a message that he wants to de-escalate tension.

There was no immediate reaction from India, though Modi earlier in the day warned that "India's enemies are conspiring to create instability in the country through terror attacks."

"We are releasing the Indian pilot as a goodwill gesture tomorrow," Khan told lawmakers. He did not say whether the release was conditional.

The Pakistani premier also said that he had feared Wednesday night that India might launch a missile attack, but the situation was later defused. He did not elaborate.

World powers have called on the nations to de-escalate the tensions gripping the contested region since a Feb. 14 suicide bombing killed over 40 Indian paramilitary troops in Kashmir in territory it controls. India responded with a pre-dawn airstrike on Tuesday inside Pakistan, the first such raid since the two nations' 1971 war over territory that later became Bangladesh.

The situation then escalated further with Wednesday's aerial skirmish, which saw Pakistan say it shot down two Indian aircraft, one of which crashed in Pakistan-held part of Kashmir and the other in India-controlled Kashmir. Pakistan later aired a video of a man it identified as the Indian pilot.

India acknowledged one of its MiG-21s, a Soviet-era fighter jet, was "lost" in skirmishes with Pakistan. India's Ministry of External Affairs said late Wednesday that it "strongly objected to Pakistan's vulgar display of an injured personnel of the Indian Air Force," and that it expects his immediate and safe return.

India also said it shot down a Pakistani warplane, something Islamabad denied.

Kashmir has been divided but claimed in its entirety by both India and Pakistan since almost immediately after the two countries' creation in 1947. They have fought three wars against each other, two directly dealing with the disputed region.

Both Indian and Pakistani officials reported small-arms fire and shelling along the Kashmir region into Thursday morning. There were no reported casualties.

Associated Press writers Aijaz Hussain in Srinagar, India, Ashok Sharma and Emily Schmall in New Delhi, Roshan Mughal in Muzafarabad, Pakistan, Adam Schreck in Hanoi, Vietnam, and Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
The Pakistani Air Force (PAF) conducted six airstrikes in Indian-administered Kashmir, shooting down one Indian aircraft and capturing its pilot following a dogfight. Pakistani officials claimed that they have shot down two Indian Air Force (IAF) jets. Wreckage of one aircraft fell in Azad Kashmir while the other fell in Indian-administered Kashmir. Indian officials initially rejected that any of their pilot was in captured, however, once the footage of Indian pilot in Pakistan's custody were released on the internet, Indian officials admitted that their pilot was captured and his aircraft was shot down. India officials also claimed to have shot down one Pakistani Air Force (PAF) jet that violated its airspace. However, Indian officials claim were rejected by Pakistan.