NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) -A blast was heard in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore on Thursday morning, according to broadcaster Geo TV and a Reuters witness, a day after Indian strikes at multiple locations in the country and fears of an escalation in conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours.
There was no immediate word on the reason for the blast.
India hit “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan in the early hours of Wednesday, two weeks after it accused the Islamic nation of involvement in an attack in Indian Kashmir in which 26 people – mostly Hindu tourists – were killed.
Islamabad had denied the accusation and vowed to retaliate to the missile strikes, also saying it shot down five Indian aircraft. The Indian embassy in Beijing termed reports of fighter jets being shot down as “misinformation”.
Pakistan says at least 31 of its civilians were killed and about 50 wounded in the strikes and in cross-border shelling that followed, while India says 13 of its civilians died and 43 were wounded.
The cross-border exchange of fire tapered off slightly overnight, Indian officials said.
India also conducted blackout drills in regions close to its border with Pakistan, including the northern city of Amritsar which houses the Golden Temple revered by Sikhs, in anticipation of retaliation to its strikes.
In Pakistan, meanwhile, most cities restored some normalcy and children returned to school, but in the border province of Punjab, hospitals and civil defence authorities remained on high alert.
Although Pakistan’s federal government has pledged to respond to India’s strikes, Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told The New York Times on Wednesday that Pakistan was ready to de-escalate.
With India saying it would “respond” if Pakistan “responds”, global powers have urged a calming of tensions. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he hoped the countries could “work it out”, adding he “will be there” if he can help.
The relationship between India and Pakistan has been fraught with tension since they gained independence from colonial Britain in 1947, and the countries have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir.
The current escalation in tensions comes at a precarious time for Pakistan’s $350 billion economy, which is still recovering from an economic crisis that brought it to the brink of defaulting on external debt obligations in 2023 before it secured funding from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
(Reporting by Saurabh Sharma in Amritsar, Fayaz Bukhari in Srinagar, Charlotte Greenfield in Islamabad; Additional reporting by Shakeel Ahmad in Bengaluru; Writing by Sakshi Dayal; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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