Indian and Pakistani forces traded intense artillery and gunfire overnight along the volatile Kashmir frontier, killing at least five civilians and escalating tensions after a deadly attack on tourists in the Indian-controlled region.
In Pakistan, relentless shelling across the Line of Control killed four civilians and wounded a dozen others, police official Adeel Ahmad said Friday. Residents in border towns reported that the barrage continued into the morning, marking one of the fiercest nights in recent memory.
“We’re used to sporadic fire here, but last night was something else,” said Mohammad Shakil, a resident of the Chakothi sector near the border.
Indian military officials said Pakistani troops targeted several of their posts with artillery, mortars and gunfire. Indian forces returned fire, sparking heavy clashes that raged until dawn.
A woman was killed and two other civilians were injured in the Uri sector, police said, bringing the civilian death toll in India to 17 since Wednesday.
Tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals have soared since an attack on a popular tourist site in Indian-controlled Kashmir left 26 civilians dead – mostly Hindu Indian tourists – on April 22. New Delhi has blamed Pakistan for backing the attack, an accusation Islamabad rejects.
On Wednesday, India conducted airstrikes on several sites in Pakistani territory, killing 31 civilians. Pakistan said it shot down five Indian fighter jets.
On Thursday, both countries reported drone attacks that the other swiftly denied. These incidents could not be independently confirmed.
Meanwhile, the social platform X said Thursday that the Indian government had ordered it to block users in the country from accessing more than 8,000 accounts, including a number belonging to “international news organizations and other prominent users.”
X did not release the list of accounts, but said the order “amounts to censorship of existing and future content and is contrary to the fundamental right of free speech.” Later, the platform briefly blocked access to the Global Affairs account from which it had posted the statement, also citing a legal demand from India.
Panic spread during an evening cricket match in northern Dharamsala, where a crowd of more than 10,000 people was evacuated from the stadium and the game called off, according to an Associated Press (AP) photographer at the event.
Several northern and western Indian states – including Punjab, Rajasthan and Indian-controlled Kashmir – shut schools and other educational institutions for two days.
Airlines in India also suspended flight operations from two dozen airports across northern and western regions. India’s Civil Aviation Ministry confirmed late Thursday the temporary closure of 24 airports.
The impact of the border flare-up was also seen in Indian stock markets. In early trade Friday, the benchmark Sensex dropped 662 points to 79,649, while the Nifty 50 declined 215 points to 24,058.
As fears of military escalation grow and world leaders urge calm, U.S. Vice President JD Vance said a potential war between India and Pakistan would be “none of our business.”
“What we can do is try to encourage these folks to de-escalate a little bit, but we’re not going to get involved in the middle of a war that’s fundamentally none of our business and has nothing to do with America’s ability to control it,” Vance said in an interview with Fox News.
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