Pakistan denies it engaged Indian military targets

ISLAMABAD

Islamabad rejected claims Thursday by India that Pakistani forces attempted to engage Indian military targets on 15 locations.

“Pakistan, being a responsible state, has so far exercised strategic restraint, acted with maturity and limited its response strictly to self-defense,” Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said at a news conference alongside military spokesman Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry.

"Today they (India) issued a political motivated statement that Pakistan carried out an attack inside India,” he said. “We reject India's statement that Pakistan carried out actions inside India and targeted Indian military installations.”

Chaudhry also rejected the claims and said the "whole world will come to know" when Pakistan retaliates.

The Indian Defense Ministry said earlier that Pakistan attempted to strike military targets in the northern and western parts of the country with “drones and missiles,” which were “neutralized.”

It said debris from the attacks was “now being recovered from a number of locations that prove the Pakistani attacks.”

Tensions escalated following India’s announcement of Operation Sindoor late Tuesday, after it struck "terrorist infrastructure” at nine sites in Pakistan. The strikes came after an attack in India-administered Kashmir late last month that killed more than two dozen victims, mostly tourists. Pakistan has denied any involvement in the attack.

New Delhi said it exercised its “right to respond and pre-empt as well as deter more such cross-border attacks.”

Pakistan said 31 victims were killed in the Indian missile attacks and cross-border firing, and vowed to retaliate.

Chaudhry also said that Pakistani forces neutralized 29 Israel-made Harop drones fired by India overnight, calling it a "serious provocation."

He said three civilians were killed and four Pakistani soldiers injured in the attacks.