Pakistan's Director of Public Relations, Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, announced on Wednesday that the death toll from Indian missile attacks had risen to 26 and 46 injured.
Chaudhry pointed out that the missiles launched from India struck numerous locations across the country, damaging mosques and health clinics. He noted that 13 people, including women and children, lost their lives and 37 were injured in the missile attack on the Bahawalpur mosque.
Earlier today, Chaudhry announced that eight people were killed and 35 others injured in the Indian missile attack.
On Tuesday, the Indian army announced the launch of a military operation against "targets" in Pakistan and the Azad Kashmir region under its control.
The Indian Army's media office stated in a statement that the operation targeted nine areas, stressing that "Pakistani military installations were not targeted."
India confirmed that eight people were killed and 29 injured in the town of Poonch in Indian-administered Kashmir as a result of artillery shelling.
Fighting erupted overnight and continued in the morning around the town, which was targeted by numerous Pakistani shells, AFP correspondents reported.
This morning, an Indian security source told Agence France-Presse that three Indian Army fighter jets had crashed for reasons that were not immediately clear. The source did not reveal the fate of the pilots.An AFP photographer spotted the wreckage of one aircraft in a field in Wan, near Srinagar. The aircraft was a Mirage 2000 belonging to the Indian Air Force, according to an Indian security source.
Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Asif confirmed to AFP that Pakistan had shot down "five enemy aircraft," without providing further details.
Overnight, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held talks with his Indian and Pakistani counterparts, urging them to "defuse" the crisis, according to the White House. Moscow also called on both sides to exercise "restraint," while Beijing expressed its willingness to play a "constructive role" in calming tensions between the two countries.Tensions between India and Pakistan escalated on April 22 after gunmen opened fire on tourists in the Pahalgam area of the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir, killing 26 people and wounding several others.
Indian officials said the attackers "came from Pakistan," while Islamabad accused India of waging a disinformation campaign against it.
India decided to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty on the division of waters following the attack and asked Pakistani diplomats in New Delhi to leave the country within a week.
For its part, Pakistan denied India's accusations, restricted the number of Indian diplomatic personnel in Islamabad, declared that it would consider any interference with rivers outside the Indus Waters Treaty an "act of war," suspended all trade with India, and closed its airspace to India.