India has launched missile strikes on at least three locations in Pakistan after weeks of increasing tensions in the region.

Witnesses in Muzaffarabad told the Reuters news agency that they heard multiple loud explosions, followed by power outages across parts of the region. The news agency also reported intense shelling of locations in border areas of Pakistan-administered Kashmir according to a BBC report.

India has, however, accused Pakistan of firing first, saying on X, formerly Twitter that Pakistan fired artillery across the Line of Control in the Poonch-Rajauri area of Indian-administered Kashmir. Our forces are “responding appropriately in a calibrated manner," the Indian Army said in a post on the social media site.

Islamabad meanwhile says it will now choose how and when to respond after a series of missile strikes reportedly hit locations inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

“All of our air force jets are airborne,” a spokesperson for Pakistan’s military said. “This is a shameful and cowardly attack that was carried out from within India's airspace.”

Updated reports from the region are now saying the Indian army is calling the action 'Operation Sindoor' and has now hit a total of nine sites inside Pakistani territory - an action AlJazeera claim is being called "an act of war" by Pakistan and that there will be a 'crushing response'.

Sindoor is the vermillion powder Indian women put in the parting of their hair to signify their status as married. In naming the operation against Pakistan as 'Operation Sindoor', it is a symbolic memorial to a married Indian naval officer who was among the 26 victims of the recent Pahalgam attack carried out by a Pakistani terrorist group meaning that his widow and many others are being avenged.