Pakistan says it shot down 12 drones from India

Reuters:

LAHORE/AMRITSAR, May 8 – Pakistan shot down 12 drones from India that violated its airspace, the military said on Thursday, a day after Indian strikes on multiple targets in the country fanned fears of a larger military conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

India sent Israeli Harop drones to multiple locations, including the two largest cities of Karachi and Lahore, and their debris is being collected, Pakistan military spokesperson Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said.

“Indian drones continue to be sent into Pakistan airspace…(India) will continue to pay dearly for this naked aggression,” he said.

India’s defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

India hit “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan in the early hours of Wednesday, two weeks after it accused the Islamic nation of involvement in an attack in Indian Kashmir in which 26 people – mostly Hindu tourists – were killed.

Islamabad had denied the accusation and vowed to retaliate to the missile strikes, also saying it shot down five Indian aircraft. The Indian embassy in Beijing termed reports of fighter jets being shot down as “misinformation”.

Reporting by Mubasher Bukhari in Lahore, Saurabh Sharma in Amritsar, Shivam Patel in New Delhi, Charlotte Greenfield, Gibran Peshimam in Islamabad, Fayaz Bukhari in Srinagar,; Additional reporting by Shakeel Ahmad in Bengaluru; Writing by Sakshi Dayal; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Raju Gopalakrishnan and YP Rajesh