MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan/NEW DELHI - India attacked nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir on Wednesday with at least three deaths reported, and Pakistan said it was mounting a response as the worst fighting in years erupted between the longstanding enemies.

Armies of the nuclear-armed neighbours exchanged intense shelling and heavy gunfire across their frontier in disputed Kashmir in at least three places, police and witnesses told Reuters.

India's offensive occurred amid heightened tensions in the aftermath of an attack on Hindu tourists in Indian Kashmir last month. Islamist assailants killed 26 men in the April 22 attack, the worst such violence targeted at civilians in India in nearly two decades.

Pakistan said India launched missiles at three places, but an Indian government statement did not detail the nature of the strikes. India said it struck "terrorist infrastructure" where attacks against it were planned and directed.

Indian TV channels showed video of explosions, fire, large plumes of smoke in the night sky and people fleeing in several places in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir. Reuters could not independently verify the footage.

Witnesses and one police officer at two sites on the frontier in Indian Kashmir said they heard loud explosions and intense artillery shelling as well as jets in the air.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said Islamabad was responding to the Indian attacks but did not provide details. US President Donald Trump called the situation "a shame" and added, "I hope it ends quickly."

An emergency was declared in Pakistan's populous province of Punjab, its chief minister said, and hospitals and emergency services were on high alert.

"A little while ago, the Indian armed forces launched ‘OPERATION SINDOOR’, hitting terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed," the Indian statement said.

"Our actions have been focused, measured and non-escalatory in nature. No Pakistani military facilities have been targeted. India has demonstrated considerable restraint in selection of targets and method of execution," it said.

PAKISTAN SAYS TWO MOSQUES HIT

A Pakistani military spokesman told broadcaster Geo that sites struck by India included two mosques and said there had been at least three deaths and 12 people injured.

Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told Geo that all sites targeted by India were civilian and not militant camps.

He said India fired missiles from its own airspace and India's claim of targeting "camps of terrorists is false".

After India's strikes, the Indian army said in a post on X on Wednesday: "Justice is served."

News of the strikes hit India's stock futures with the benchmark NSE Nifty 50 index falling 1.19% at the GIFT city financial centre.

After the explosions, power was blacked out in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, witnesses said.

India blamed Pakistan for the violence last month in which 26 men were killed and vowed to respond. Pakistan denied that it had anything to do with the killings and said that it had intelligence that India was planning to attack.

The name of India's military operation, Sindoor, is an apparent reference to the women who lost their spouses in the attack on Hindu tourists in Pahalgam last month.

Sindoor is the Hindi for the traditional red vermilion worn by married Hindu women on their forehead symbolising protection and marital commitment. Women traditionally stop wearing it when they are widowed.

- REUTERS

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India strikes Pakistan in aftermath of Kashmir tourist killings