Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry in Islamabad said the country’s air force was carrying out airstrikes Wednesday from within Pakistani airspace across the disputed Kashmir boundary but that this was not in “retaliation to continued Indian belligerence.”

Ghafoor, the Pakistani military spokesman, said the strikes were aimed at “avoiding human loss and collateral damage.”

The shelling earlier Wednesday by India hit the village of Kotli in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, killing six people, including children, local police official Mohammad Altaf said.

Kashmir is split between Pakistan and India and claimed by both in its entirety. Though Pakistani and Indian troops in Kashmir often trade fire, the latest casualties came a day after tensions escalated sharply following a pre-dawn airstrike and incursion by India that New Delhi said targeted a terrorist training camp in northwestern Pakistan.

Tuesday’s pre-dawn strike by India was its first inside of Pakistan since the two nations’ 1971 war over territory that later became Bangladesh. Pakistan had said that Indian warplanes dropped bombs near the Pakistani town of Balakot but there were no casualties.

The violence Wednesday marked the most-serious escalation of the long-simmering conflict since 1999, when Pakistan’s military sent a ground force into Indian-controlled Kashmir at Kargil. That year also saw an Indian fighter jet shoot down a Pakistani naval aircraft, killing all 16 on board.

Residents on both sides of the de-facto frontier, the so-called Line of Control, said there were exchanges of fire between the two sides through the night into Wednesday morning. Hundreds of villagers fled border towns in both India and Pakistan.

In New Delhi, Indian officials said Wednesday at least five of their soldiers were wounded in firing by Pakistani troops along the volatile frontier.

Lt. Col. Devender Anand, an Indian army spokesman, said Pakistani soldiers targeted dozens of Indian military positions across the Line of Control throughout the night. An Indian military statement said that “out of anger and frustration,” Pakistan “initiated unprovoked cease-fire violation.”

The statement said Indian troops “retaliated for effect” and claimed to have destroyed five Pakistani posts. It accused Pakistani soldiers of firing mortars and missiles “from civilian houses, using villagers as human shields.”

On Wednesday, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told state-run Pakistan Television he was in touch with his counterparts across the world about the “Indian aggression,” adding that New Delhi had endangered peace in the region by Tuesday’s airstrike on Pakistan.

India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said Wednesday her country does not wish to see further escalation of the situation with Pakistan and that it will continue to act with responsibility and restraint.

She said the limited objective of India’s pre-emptive strike inside Pakistan on a terrorist training camp Tuesday was to act decisively against the terrorist infrastructure of Jaish-e-Mohammad group, to pre-empt another terror attack in India.

The latest wave of tensions between Pakistan and India first erupted after the militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad claimed responsibility for the Feb. 14 suicide bombing of a convoy of India’s paramilitary forces in the Indian portion of Kashmir that killed over 40 Indian troops.

Pakistan has said it was not involved in the attack and was ready to help New Delhi in the investigations. India long has accused Pakistan of cultivating such militant groups to attack it. (AP)