Nuclear war with India could break out ‘at any time’, Pakistan’s defence minister has said, as fears of tit-for-tat bloodshed continue to grow.
Speaking to Pakistani TV channel Geo News, the country’s defence minister Khawaja Asif said late on Wednesday: ‘If they [India] impose an all-out war on the region and if such dangers arise in which there is a stand-off, then at any time a nuclear war can break out.’
He added: ‘If they aggravate this then if a chance of war arises in which there is a sign of nuclear option being used on both sides, then the responsibility for that will be on India.’
The country’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, said meanwhile that Islamabad would ‘avenge each drop of the blood of these martyrs’, amid reports 31 civilians had been killed by Indian strikes and artillery firing along the border. New Delhi has not responded to the claims.
Pakistan has vowed to strike back against India, warning it reserves the right to respond to overnight missile strikes at a ‘time, place and manner of its choosing’.
Islamabad also deemed India’s assault an ‘act of war’ that it claims deliberately targeted civilian areas – an allegation roundly denied by New Delhi.
India’s government said that 13 civilians had been killed by Pakistani fire in what it called ‘ceasefire violations’ along their de facto border since Wednesday. Both sides exchanged gunfire overnight in Kashmir.
India told foreign envoys in New Delhi that ‘if Pakistan responds, India will respond,’ sparking fears of a larger military conflict in one of the world’s most dangerous – and most populated – nuclear flash-point regions.
Their overnight attack on Wednesday was, in turn, said to be in response to a massacre of civilians at a beauty spot in the Indian section of the disputed Kashmir region last month.
A Pakistan Army soldier stands guard at the entrance as smoke rises from the Bilal Mosque, after it was hit by an Indian strike in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, May 7
A girl who lives in a village near the Line of Control between India and Pakistan, and was wounded during shelling by Pakistan is treated at a hospital in Uri, Indian controlled Kashmir, Wednesday, May 7, 2025
A view of the site of an Indian missile strike near Bahawalpur, Punjab province, Pakistan, 07 May 2025. India stated that it conducted military strikes on nine sites in Pakistan in retaliation for a deadly militant attack on tourists in Kashmir
