New Delhi, May 8: In a significant operation, India on Thursday morning targeted the Air Defence Radars and systems at a number of locations in Pakistan, during which the one at Lahore has been neutralised, said the government in a statement.

On the night of May 7-8, Pakistan attempted to engage a number of military targets in Northern and Western India, including Awantipura, Srinagar, Jammu, Pathankot, Amritsar, Kapurthala, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Adampur, Bhatinda, Chandigarh, Nal, Phalodi, Uttarlai, and Bhuj, using drones and missiles.

These drones and missiles were neutralised by the Integrated Counter UAS Grid and Air Defence systems. “The debris of these attacks is now being recovered from a number of locations that prove the Pakistani attacks,” said the release.

Following this, India launched a major strike and targeted Pakistan’s Air Defence Radars and systems at several locations.

“The Indian response has been in the same domain with the same intensity as Pakistan. It has been reliably learnt that an Air Defence system at Lahore has been neutralised,” the government statement read..

Pakistan has increased the intensity of its unprovoked firing across the Line of Control using mortars and heavy-calibre Artillery in areas in Kupwara, Baramulla, Uri, Poonch, Mendhar and Rajouri sectors in Jammu and Kashmir.

The government said that India was compelled to take the action in view of Pakistan’s unprovoked heavy shelling across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir. In the firing by the Pakistan Army, 16 lives have been lost so far.

“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 Mortar and Artillery fire from Pakistan to a halt,” said the release.

The Indian Armed Forces have reiterated their commitment to non-escalation, provided the same is respected by the Pakistani military.

During the Press Briefing on Operation Sindoor on May 7, India had called its response as 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.

Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar’s brother, Abdul Rauf Azhar, was critically injured in Indian airstrikes carried out under Operation Sindoor in Pakistan’s Bahawalpur, according to reports.

Abdul Rauf Azhar, who is also the terror group’s second-in-command and played a role in the Kandahar IC-814 hijacking and various other terrorist activities in India, is currently undergoing treatment at a Pakistani military hospital, the sources added.

The reports about Rauf Azhar come after the JeM chief confirmed in a statement that 14 members of his family and four close aides were killed in the Indian strikes.

Among those killed in the Indian strikes were Azhar’s elder sister, her husband, his nephew and his wife, another niece, and five children, along with Azhar’s mother and three key aides, as per reports.

Meanwhile, amid reports suggesting drone strikes in Pakistani cities, Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh reportedly told political leaders during the all-party meeting in Delhi that Operation Sindoor is still ongoing.

Separately, the Prime Minister chaired a high-level meeting on Thursday with secretaries of various ministries and departments to review national preparedness and inter-ministerial coordination in light of recent developments concerning national security.

Prime Minister Modi stressed the need for seamless coordination among ministries and agencies to uphold operational continuity and institutional resilience. He also reviewed the planning and preparations by ministries to deal with the current situation, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said in a statement.

New Delhi, May 8: After India launched its most expansive cross-border strikes on terror bases in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Pakistan, a flood of misinformation and false propaganda is being peddled from across the border by influencers, media, as well as government-sponsored social media handles.

The latest lie being peddled by Pakistani handles is the interception of an Indian Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) in Pakistan’s Gujranwala region and subsequently shot down by the Pakistan Army.

This comes a day after the Indian Army launched multiple cross-border strikes via niche weapons, including drones, missiles and guided bombs to dismantle terror networks and infrastructure.

Press Information Bureau (PIB), the government’s nodal agency for disseminating information, has fact-checked the fake and baseless narrative being spread by Pakistani handles, pertaining to the drone being intercepted in Gujaranwala.

“The image being circulated is from the Ukraine-Russia conflict in 2022,” informed the PIB on X and also shared a weblink to ascertain the source of the image.

Earlier in the day, the PIB debunked another false narrative by Pakistani media, which claimed that Pakistan has retaliated to Indian military strikes and in response, has hit a military base in Amritsar. A video of an inferno was also shared along with this to corroborate this claim.

The PIB was, however, quick to dig deep and expose the mischievous agenda of Pakistan.

The video was found to be of a wildfire.

“Pakistan-based handles are spreading old videos falsely alleging strikes on a military base in Amritsar. The video being shared is from a wildfire from 2024,” it said and also urged the public to rely only on official sources from the Government of India for accurate information.

Several images and videos shared by Pakistani sources have been either digitally altered or lifted from unrelated incidents, often years old, and repurposed to suggest a fabricated narrative of retaliation and military prowess. Even influential political figures are sharing discredited material and making unsubstantiated claims of victorious counterstrikes.

India’s strikes inside the neighbouring nation have clearly left it rattled and agitated, however, India has maintained that they were ‘measured, calibrated and non-escalatory’.