India says strikes on Pakistan were 'right to respond'

India's Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said Wednesday that missile strikes against Pakistan were a "carefully planned" operation that exercised New Delhi's "right to respond".

India's military said the strikes destroyed "nine terrorist camps" belonging to those it blames for an attack last month in Indian-administered Kashmir that killed 26 people.

Pakistan said over 20 civilians were killed in the strikes, with five more deaths reported in cross-border gunfire that followed.

Among the dead were four children, including two three-year-old girls, according to officials in Islamabad.

"The targets we had chosen were destroyed with great precision and sensitivity, ensuring that no civilian population or area was affected," Singh told reporters in New Delhi.

"We only targeted terror camps, exercising our right to respond to the attack on our soil."

India had been widely expected to respond to the April 22 assault on tourists in Kashmir, which it blamed on Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN-designated terrorist organization.

Singh said the operation was aimed solely at "terror infrastructure", describing it as a calibrated response that reflected India’s restraint and professionalism.

"We can say that it was a display of precision, alertness and humanity", he said.

Islamabad rejects backing the April 22 attack.

Pakistan's Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif earlier accused Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi of launching the strikes to "shore up" his domestic popularity, but said that Islamabad had struck back.

"The retaliation has already started," Asif told AFP. "We won't take long to settle the score."