New Delhi closed its airspace to Pakistani airplanes on Wednesday after Islamabad banned Indian planes from overflying, the latest tit-for-tat measure as relations between the nuclear-armed rivals spiral into a tailspin.
New Delhi accuses Islamabad of backing the deadliest attack in years on civilians in Indian-occupied Kashmir on April 22, in which 26 men were killed.
Islamabad has rejected the allegation, and both countries have since exchanged gunfire in Kashmir, diplomatic barbs, expelled citizens and ordered the border shut.
Pakistan closed its airspace to Indian aircraft on April 24, while India took a similar measure on Wednesday evening, with the ban to last until May 23, the government notice said.
The notice to air operators said that Indian airspace was not available for Pakistani registered or leased aircraft — “including military flights”.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave the military “complete operational freedom” to respond to the attack during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, a senior government source told AFP.
Pakistan’s government has denied any involvement in the shooting and vowed that “any act of aggression will be met with a decisive response”.
Meanwhile, Islamabad said on Wednesday that Pakistan and India’s military discussed ceasefire violations on the disputed Kashmir border.
The two sides held a routine weekly call in which Pakistan “raised the ceasefire violation issue” on Tuesday along the Line of Control (LoC), the country’s army spokesman Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry told a press conference.
India’s foreign minister said Thursday that those who planned and carried out an attack in Kashmir last week that left 26 men dead “must be brought to justice”.
“Its perpetrators, backers and planners must be brought to justice,” India’s top diplomat Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said in a statement following a conversation with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday evening in which they discussed the attack.
Rubio also spoke to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and in a US readout of the call, told Sharif of the “need to condemn the terror attack” in Occupied Kashmir.
