Six air strikes in Indian-occupied Kashmir

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Many of the facts in the latest series of engagements are disputed by the two sides.

Major General Asif Ghafoor, a spokesman for the Pakistan armed forces, said Pakistan carried out six air strikes in Indian-occupied Kashmir after Indian jets had entered its airspace. India denies this, saying Pakistan has initiated the engagement by targeting military installations.

#Talks and torched Pakistan terrorist pic.twitter.com/NLCyYs1ZXG— V.Abishekkumar (@VAbishekkumar) February 27, 2019

Describing the Pakistani air mission before the downing of the Indian jets, Ghafoor said Pakistani planes “locked” on Indian ground targets to demonstrate their capabilities to strike, but deliberately fired elsewhere on open spaces where there would be no casualties.

“This was not a retaliation in true sense, but to tell Pakistan has capability, we can do it, but we want to be responsible, we don’t want an escalation, we don’t want a war,” Ghafoor told a news conference.

One of the aircraft fell on India’s side of Kashmir, while the second came down in Pakistani-held territory with two pilots captured, he added.

Raveesh Kumar, a spokesman for India’s foreign ministry, gave a different account, telling a news briefing that the Pakistan airstrikes on military targets had been “foiled”.

India shot down one Pakistani plane that landed in Pakistani territory, and that it had lost one of its own planes, not two, with the pilot “missing in action”, Kumar added.

“Pakistan has claimed that he is in their custody. We are ascertaining the facts,” Kumar said.

At the Pakistani briefing, Ghafoor produced photographs of weapons and identity documents he said were carried by Indian pilots.

The Pakistan government’s official Twitter account released a video of what it claimed was one of the Indian pilots who had been shot down.

The man, whose face is bloodied and blindfolded, gives his name and service number, before telling a man questioning him: “I’m sorry sir, that’s all I’m supposed to tell you.”

The Indian air force has ordered Kashmir’s main airport in Srinagar along with at least three others in neighboring states to close, an official said.

Pakistan shut its airspace, with commercial flights in the country canceled. Flights from the Middle East and India were also affected.

In a separate incident, police officials in Indian-occupied Kashmir said that two Indian pilots and a civilian had died after an Indian aircraft crashed in Kashmir. The craft was initially reported by officials to be a plane, but a partial tail number from the craft seen by a Reuters witness showed it to be an nMi17 military helicopter.

The cause of the crash was unknown.

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