Pakistan said on Thursday it had shot down 12 Indian drones overnight, as the conflict over Kashmir threatens to spiral out of control.
Twelve Indian drones were shot down overnight after being intercepted by air defense systems, Pakistani army spokesman Lt. Gen. Ahmad Sharif said on Thursday.
He said that one drone wounded four soldiers and damaged a military target near the city of Lahore and that a civilian was killed when debris from a drone fell in a populated area of Sindh province in southern Pakistan.
India has not commented, and The Epoch Times is unable to verify the claims made by Pakistan.
The crisis between India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers, has escalated in the past two weeks.
Crisis Began When Terrorists Attacked Tourists
After several relatively quiet years, a terrorist attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir on April 22 suddenly ratcheted tensions between India and Pakistan.
Three gunmen killed 26 people, mostly male Hindu tourists, during the attack in Baisaran meadow, three miles from the resort town of Pahalgam.
An unknown group called the Kashmir Resistance, also known as The Resistance Front, claimed responsibility, and India suggested the group was an offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a terrorist group that has in the past attacked the Indian military and police in Indian-administered Kashmir.
Pakistan has denied any links with the terrorists, and on May 1, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif suggested to Sky News that the April 22 incident might have been a false flag attack.
India Responded With Air Strikes
India responded on April 23 and announced at a special briefing that it was suspending the Indus Waters Treaty, canceling the visas of Pakistani nationals in India, and expelling several Pakistani diplomats.
On May 7, India carried out air strikes on nine targets in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, and Pakistan itself.
The Indian Ministry of Defence issued a statement saying it had hit “terrorist infrastructure … from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed.”
Sharif said that 26 civilians were killed by Indian missile strikes and that another five were killed by Indian artillery shells fired across the Line of Control in Kashmir.
India claimed that at least seven civilians had been killed in the district of Poonch after Pakistan fired artillery across the Line of Control.
The casualty figures could not be independently verified by The Epoch Times.
Pakistan’s National Security Committee, chaired by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, said in a statement that the Indian air strikes were carried out “on the false pretext of the presence of imaginary terrorist camps.”
