Rising tensions: India, Pakistan claim to down each other鈥檚 jets
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India and Pakistan both said they shot down each other鈥檚 fighter jets yesterday, with Pakistan capturing an Indian pilot a day after Indian warplanes struck inside Pakistan for the first time since a 1971 war, prompting world powers to urge restraint.
Both countries have ordered airstrikes over the past two days, the first time in history that two nuclear-armed powers have done so, while ground forces have exchanged fire in more than a dozen locations.
Tension has been running high since a suicide car bombing by Pakistan-based militants in Indian-controlled Kashmir killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police on February 14, but the risk of conflict rose dramatically on Tuesday when India launched an airstrike on what it said was a militant training base.
Many of the facts in the latest series of engagements are disputed by the two sides.
Major General Asif Ghafoor, spokesman for the Pakistan armed forces, said two Indian jets had been shot down after they entered Pakistani airspace while responding to a Pakistani aerial mission on targets in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Ghafoor said the Pakistani aircraft had carried out the strikes in response to India鈥檚 airstrike the day before but had taken deliberate action to ensure no casualties were caused.
Raveesh Kumar, a spokesman for India鈥檚 foreign ministry, gave a different account, telling a news briefing that the Pakistan airstrikes on military targets had been 鈥渇oiled.鈥 India shot down one Pakistani plane that landed in Pakistani territory, and it had lost one of its own planes, not two, with the pilot 鈥渕issing in action,鈥 Kumar added.
Pakistan denied it lost a plane in the encounter.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan called for talks with India and hoped 鈥渂etter sense鈥 would prevail so that both sides could de-escalate.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke separately with the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan and urged them to avoid 鈥渇urther military activity鈥 following Tuesday鈥檚 airstrike.
Both China and the European Union have also called for restraint.
The Pakistan government鈥檚 official Twitter account released a video of what it claimed was an Indian pilot who had been shot down.
The man, whom Pakistan has named as Wing Commander Abhi Nandan and whose face is bloodied and blindfolded, gives his name and service number, before telling a man questioning him: 鈥淚鈥檓 sorry sir, that鈥檚 all I鈥檓 supposed to tell you.鈥
A statement from India鈥檚 foreign ministry said the pilot鈥檚 treatment was a 鈥渧ulgar display of an injured personnel of the Indian Air Force in violation of all norms of international humanitarian law and the Geneva Convention,鈥 ordering his immediate release. India has not yet named the pilot.
Pakistan and India have fought three wars since independence from British colonial rule in 1947, two over the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, and went to the brink of a fourth in 2002 after a Pakistani militant attack on India鈥檚 parliament.
The latest escalation marks a sudden turnaround in relations between the two countries. As recently as November, Pakistan鈥檚 Khan spoke of 鈥渕ending ties鈥 with India.
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