Residents of Pakistani Kashmir say they fled into hills during Indian strikes

By Tariq Maqbool

MUZAFFARABAD (Reuters) - Residents of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, said they fled their homes and ran into surrounding hills as India launched airstrikes early on Wednesday in a part of the city.

Mosque loudspeakers told people to seek shelter as the ground shook repeatedly and the sounds of explosions reverberated, they said.

"We came outside," said Muhammad Shair Mir, 46, describing the events of the night. "Then another blast happened. The whole house moved. Everyone got scared, we all evacuated, took our kids and went up (the hill)."

Many people gathered after sunrise near a mosque that had been hit in the strikes, its roof smashed and minaret toppled. Security forces had cordoned off the area.

The district commissioner, a senior local official, said three people were killed near the collapsed mosque. In total, Pakistan's military said 26 people were killed and 46 wounded in Indian attacks across Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir.

India launched the strikes early on Wednesday, saying it was targeting "terrorist camps" that served as recruitment centres, launchpads, and indoctrination centres, and housed weapons and training facilities.

Pakistan called it a "blatant act of war" as tensions spiralled between the nuclear-armed rivals after a deadly attack by Islamist gunmen on tourists in Indian Kashmir. It said none of the targeted areas were militant camps.

District officials said that at the Line of Control that divides Pakistani and Indian Kashmir, mortar and light arms fire between the two armies continued into the morning and had killed at least six civilians on the Pakistani side.

Police in Indian Kashmir said at least 10 people were killed and nearly 50 injured there.

In Muzaffarbad, hospitals were operational and some small businesses opened in the morning but schools were closed and examinations cancelled, according to local authorities.

Shair Mir said he and his family spent four hours in the open. Some of his neighbours had gone to hospital with injuries and the rest were shaken, he said.

"This is wrong ... poor innocent people, our poor mothers are sick, our sisters are sick .. our houses were rattled, our walls have cracked," he said.

(Reporting by Tariq Maqbool, Akhtar Soomro and Reuters TV in Muzafarrabad; writing by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)