Pakistan has warned that it will “avenge” the deaths of 31 people killed in Indian Air Force missile strikes, raising fears of an escalation in the conflict between the two nuclear-armed countries.
In an address to the nation late on Wednesday evening, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said: “We give our pledge that we will avenge every drop of blood of these martyrs.”
His comments came after the Pakistani government accused India of “fanning the flames” by striking nine targets in Kashmir and the Pakistani province of Punjab, and authorised its military to take “appropriate” retaliatory action against India.
New Delhi said the strikes were direct retaliation for an attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir late last month in which militants killed 26 Hindu tourists and their guide. India accused Pakistan of direct involvement in the attacks through Islamist militant groups.
After India’s air strikes on Wednesday, which killed 31 people, including several children, and wounded dozens more, India jubilantly declared victory over Pakistan.
The Indian army said the strikes targeted terrorists and terrorist training camps belonging to two Islamist militant groups that have long been accused of operating freely outside Pakistan and of being involved in some of the deadliest attacks in India.
Kashmir, located at the foot of the Himalayas, has been a subject of dispute since the partition of India and the formation of Pakistan in 1947. Both India and Pakistan claim the region in its entirety, but each controls part of the territory, divided by one of the most heavily militarised borders in the world: the “Line of Control,” based on the ceasefire line established after the 1947-48 war. China controls another part of Kashmir in the east.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars over Kashmir, the last one in 1999.
