The Pakistan government, on Thursday, May 8, claimed it had shot down five Indian fighter aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles during their engagement with the Indian Armed Forces on the intervening night of May 6 and 7. While these claims are yet to be verified as India has not responded so far, Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has strongly condemned the strikes as “blatant violations of sovereignty” and “acts of war”. The Ministry has also warned that India’s “reckless aggression” has pushed the two nuclear-armed neighbours dangerously close to major conflict.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar, in a briefing to Ambassadors based in Islamabad on the current situation, confirmed that the Indian Armed Forces had launched coordinated missile, air and drone strikes on multiple locations in Pakistan.
The attacks were carried out in Sialkot, Shakargarh, Muridke, Bahawalpur, Kotli, and Muzaffarabad. Pakistan claimed that these were civilian areas, and that 26 civilians, including women and children, were killed, and 46 injured.
“These unprovoked attacks deliberately targeted civilian areas on the false pretext of the presence of terrorist infrastructure,” he said. “The deliberate targeting of civilians, including innocent women and children, is a heinous and shameful crime.”
Ishaq Dar further alleged that places of worship, including mosques, were destroyed or damaged in the strikes. He described the targeting of religious sites as “particularly reprehensible,” and claimed that the Neelum-Jhelum hydropower project had also been attacked in a move that defied international conventions and raised further alarms given India’s recent decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty.
Pakistan also alleged that the Indian strikes endangered commercial air traffic, with several passenger flights in the air at the time, putting thousands of lives at risk.
Ishaq Dar described the Indian actions as a “flagrant violation of the UN Charter, international law, and established norms governing inter-state relations,” calling them “acts of war.”
He added, “India's jingoism and war hysteria should be a source of serious concern for the world.”
On May 7, India launched ‘Operation Sindoor’ in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack, in which 26 people were killed. As part of the operation, precision strikes were carried out on nine terrorist sites affiliated with Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba within Pakistani territory.
However, Pakistan said India had blamed it for the Pahalgam attack without providing verifiable evidence or conducting credible investigations.
Ishaq Dar reiterated Pakistan’s rejection of India’s allegations, saying, “India blamed Pakistan without any verifiable evidence or credible investigations.” He added that Pakistan had offered a transparent, independent investigation led by neutral parties, but India had not responded.
Pakistan has also rejected India’s claims about the presence of terrorist camps on its territory. “International media personnel visited some of the so-called ‘terrorist camps’ on May 6, 2025,” Ishaq Dar said, adding that similar visits were scheduled for May 7.
India, during a media briefing on May 7, had claimed that Pakistan has systematically built terror infrastructure and that it was a complex web of recruitment and indoctrination centres, training areas for initial and refresher courses.
Meanwhile, India’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) May 8 said that they neutralised Pakistan’s Air Defence System in Lahore. According to the MoD, Indian forces conducted precision strikes on multiple Pakistani military installations, including air defence radars and systems, following attempts by Pakistan’s military to target Indian sites.
On the night of May 7, the MoD said, Pakistan attempted to engage Indian military targets in 15 locations across northern and western India, including Srinagar, Jammu, Amritsar, Pathankot, and Bhuj, using a combination of drones and missiles. These attempts, the ministry said, were intercepted and neutralised by India’s Integrated Counter-Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Grid and Air Defence systems.
The Indian Armed Forces maintain that they are committed to non-escalation, provided it is respected by the Pakistani military.