India thwarts Pak missile, drone attacks on 15 cities, strikes back at its air defence radars

India said Pakistani air defence radars were targeted after Pakistan sought to engage Indian military targets

NEW DELHI: The Indian military on Thursday thwarted attempts by Pakistan forces to hit several military targets in 15 cities in the country’s north and west using missiles and drones, and targeted Pakistan’s air defence network at several locations in that country with the one in Lahore being destroyed in the counter-attack, the defence ministry said.

A big hole is seen on a rooftop of a structure suspected to have been damaged in Indian drone attack as residents gather near a cordoned off site where Pakistan's air defence system shot down a suspected Indian drone in Karachi on May 8 (AP)

“Indian response has been in the same domain with same intensity as Pakistan... It has been reliably learnt that an air defence system at Lahore has been neutralised,” the ministry said in a statement, as tensions rose further between the nuclear-armed neighbours who have fought four wars.

It added that “Pakistan’s bid to escalate was negated and drew a proportionate response.”

Indian forces used the S-400 Triumf air defence systems and loitering ammunition in its swift response to the Pakistani belligerence, officials aware of the matter said.

The development came a day after India launched Operation Sindoor and carried out precision strikes on terrorist infrastructure at nine sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack two weeks ago. These strikes marked the first attacks on the neighbouring country’s most populous province, Punjab, since the 1971 war.

The cities targeted by Pakistan on May 7 night including Awantipura, Srinagar, Jammu, Pathankot, Amritsar, Kapurthala, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Adampur, Bathinda, Chandigarh, Nal, Phalodi, Uttarlai, and Bhuj. Fighter jets and military transport aircraft are based in many of these cities.

“On the night of May 7-8, 2025, Pakistan attempted to engage a number of military targets in northern and Western India...using drones and missiles. These were neutralised by the Integrated Counter UAS (unmanned aerial system) grid and air defence systems.

The debris of these attacks is now being recovered from a number of locations that prove the Pakistani attacks,” the ministry said in a statement.

India’s “measured, non-escalatory and proportionate” strikes on terror infrastructure in Pakistan and PoK were a response to the Pahalgam terror attack and aimed at pre-empting and deterring more cross-border assaults, foreign secretary Vikram Misri said at a press briefing on Operation Sindoor on Wednesday.

The defence ministry reiterated the point on Thursday.

“During the press briefing. India had called its response focused, measured and non-escalatory. It was specifically mentioned that Pakistani military establishments had not been targeted. It was also reiterated that any attack on military targets in India will invite a suitable response,” the defence ministry statement said.

The Indian armed forces reiterate their commitment to non-escalation, provided it is respected by the Pakistani military, it added.

Pakistan has increased the intensity of its unprovoked firing across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir using heavy calibre artillery and mortars in sectors including Kupwara, Baramulla, Uri, Poonch, Mendhar and Rajouri.

“Sixteen innocent lives have been lost, including three women and five children, due to Pakistani firing. Here too, India was compelled to respond to bring Pakistan’s mortar and artillery fire to a halt,” the statement said.

On Wednesday, it took the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force 26 minutes to bomb to smithereens nine targets in Pakistan and PoK that were carefully selected based on hard intelligence and their nefarious track record of perpetrating terror activities against the country.

The five terror training camps targeted with precision weapons across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir were between nine and 30 km inside PoK, while the four targets on the other side of the international border (IB) six to 100 km inside Pakistan.

The cross-border strikes by India weren’t unexpected.

The countdown to the military action began on April 29 after Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the armed forces a free hand to respond forcefully to the Pahalgam strike, underlining that they have full operational freedom to decide on “the mode, targets, and timing of our response.”