Pakistan has vowed to strike back against India, warning it reserves the right to respond to overnight missile strikes at a ‘time, place and manner of its choosing’.

Islamabad deemed India’s assault an ‘act of war’ that it claims deliberately targeted civilian areas, killing at least 31 people and injuring 57 more – an allegation roundly denied by New Delhi.

As Pakistan moved tanks near Kashmir on Wednesday, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the armed forces had been authorised to undertake ‘corresponding actions’.

Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said Pakistan will only hit military targets in India, telling Pakistani news channel Geo News: ‘We will never target civilians’.

‘We will abide by international law. We will contain this international confrontation to military targets only,’ he added.

Meanwhile, India told more than a dozen foreign envoys in New Delhi that ‘if Pakistan responds, India will respond,’ fuelling fears of a larger military conflict in one of the world’s most dangerous – and most populated – nuclear flashpoint regions.

Residents living around the de facto border fled today after India launched attacks on what it said was nine ‘terror camps’ inside Pakistan overnight.

Both nuclear-armed countries subsequently exchanged artillery fire. Pakistan said five were killed in shelling near the Line of Control, and India said at least seven were killed their side.

As the smoke subsided, the Indian army this morning said it had been proportionate in its actions, ‘focused, measured and non-escalatory’.

But Pakistan’s National Security Committee, chaired by the prime minister, said the strikes had been carried out on a ‘false pretext’ of the ‘imaginary terrorist camps’.