India launched airstrikes against Pakistan and its territory Wednesday, killing at least 31 people and leaving dozens more injured in an attack its fellow nuclear-armed South Asian neighbor slammed as an “act of war.”

India’s “Operation Sindoor” targeted nine Pakistani “terrorist infrastructure” sites used by militants linked to last month’s massacre of tourists in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, the Indian military said.

Pakistan said at 26 people died in the missiles strikes, while at least seven were killed in Indian-controlled Kashmir from artillery exchanges.

Scores of others were wounded in the strikes, officials said.

India also claims there were casualties from Pakistani fire in the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, though the number wasn’t immediately clear.

Pakistan’s military said the missiles struck six locations in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and in the country’s eastern Punjab province.

India maintained it attacked facilities linked to Islamist militant groups Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, two Indian military spokespeople told a briefing in New Delhi.

The camps served as recruitment centers, launchpads and indoctrination centers — and housed weapons and training facilities, the spokespeople added.

They claimed Indian forces chose warheads for the strikes in a bid to avoid collateral damage to civilians and civilian infrastructure, but didn’t elaborate further.

“Intelligence and monitoring of Pakistan-based terror modules showed that further attacks against India were impending, therefore, it was necessary to take pre-emptive and precautionary strikes,” Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told the briefing.

Pakistan, however, claimed it shot down several Indian aircraft in retaliation — including three top-line fighter jets.

Two planes fell onto villages in India-controlled Kashmir while one fell in northern Punjab state.

“Pakistan has every right to give a robust response to this act of war imposed by India, and a strong response is indeed being given,” Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a statement.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, meanwhile, oversaw the military operation but has not yet publicly commented.

Targeted cities include Ahmedpur East, Bahawalpur, Muridke, and Muzaffarabad, which is the main city of Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

A Pakistani military spokesman told broadcaster Geo that two mosques were among the sites hit by India and disputed claims that India only targeted terrorists.

After the airstrikes, Muzaffarabad lost power, Reuters reported, citing witnesses.

US officials have weighed in on the boiling over of tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

“I am monitoring the situation between India and Pakistan closely. I echo @POTUS’s comments earlier today that this hopefully ends quickly and will continue to engage both Indian and Pakistani leadership towards a peaceful resolution,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X Tuesday night.

Earlier, President Trump called the situation “a shame” and added, “I hope it ends quickly.”

The Indian airstrikes come after a deadly terrorist attack on tourists in India-administered Kashmir on April 22, in which 26 people, mostly Indian Hindu men, were killed.

India accused the Pakistani government of backing that attack, which the government denied.

The Indian military celebrated the attacks on X.

“Justice is Served. Jai Hind!,” the official Indian military account posted on X, using the traditional political slogan that means, “Hail India!”

Minutes before the strike, the Indian army posted a war propaganda video on X with the caption, “Ready to Strike, Trained to Win. #IndianArmy.”

The name of Operation Sindoor is derived from the vermilion red that Hindu women wear after their husband dies, in a direct reference to the men who were killed in the April 22 terrorist attack.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for maximum military restraint from both countries, a spokesperson said.

With Post wires