Cross-border tensions top news agenda in India

By Ahmad Adil

CHANDIGARH, India AA - Leading newspapers in India on Thursday focused on rising tensions with neighboring Pakistan following cross-border air raids.

The Times of India, a leading daily, carried a story "Tension in the air".

In another report, the newspaper said the government remains unmoved by Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan's speech calling for dialogue.

On Wednesday, the two countries locked down in their first aerial dogfight in decades, with Pakistan claiming to have downed two Indian aircraft entering their airspace. India claimed to have shot down one Pakistani aircraft and losing one jet in the process.

Pakistan also captured an Indian pilot who will be released on Friday.

Another daily Hindustan Times carried the headline "Jets downed, tensions up".

“Pakistan responded on Wednesday to an Indian air strike on a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terror camp the previous day, even as the two sides claimed to have downed the other’s fighter planes, and Pakistan captured an Indian pilot, escalating tensions between the two countries," the story said.

In another story, the newspaper praised the captured Indian pilot Abhinandan Varthaman saying he "has been a fighter pilot for 16 years and is the son of a decorated and senior officer of the air force".

The Indian Express, another newspaper, ran the headline "Day after, sleepless night".

Reputed daily The Hindu carried the headline “IAF plane shot down, pilot taken captive by Pak. Army” after a "major aerial confrontation".

The Telegraph newspaper included a story with the headline "Pray for saner counsel". It also carried excerpts from Imran Khan’s televised address on Wednesday.

A leading Hindi newspaper Dainik Bhaskar, published on the front page a headline, “Rashtra ko Abhinandan chahiye [The nation wants Abhinandan ]”.

Tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbors have escalated following a suicide bombing claimed by Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) in Jammu and Kashmir that killed more than 40 Indian troops earlier this month.

On Tuesday, Indian jets entered Pakistan claiming to have killed several terrorists in a JEM training camp.

Pakistan, which has banned JEM since 2002 but is accused by India of providing the group a sanctuary, denied the claim saying the Indian jets had dropped bombs at empty forestland.

The two South Asian nations have fought three wars in 1948, 1965 and 1971 -- two of them over Kashmir -- since they were partitioned in 1947.