Tooba MasoodTwenty-eight-year-old Saad Ali was jolted awake from his sleep on Thursday morning by a loud explosion near his home in Walton, a residential neighbourhood in Lahore, Pakistan.
The next thing he knew, his friends and family were calling him to see if he was alright. Confused, Ali went outside to see what was happening. As soon as he stepped out, he saw others were also doing the same - trying to figure out what was going on.
“So I went inside to check the news and that is when I learnt exactly what had happened,” he told TRT World. Then Ali, who works in an advertising company, got ready and left for work.
“When I got to work, everything seemed normal, but then we heard a few more explosions, with five-to-ten-minute gaps. We couldn’t figure out if it was a mock drill or shelling,” he said, adding that he and his colleagues decided to head downstairs, where it might be safer.
At first, he said, they didn’t know what was happening as there was fear and a lot of misinformation going around. “Then we learnt that drones had been shot down,” he explained.
Pakistan’s military said it shot down 25 Israeli-made Harop drones sent by India overnight.
At least one civilian was killed in the Ghotki district of southern Sindh province, a Pakistan military spokesperson said.
The drones targeted Lahore, Karachi, and Rawalpindi, among other cities.
Tensions have escalated between the nuclear-armed neighbours after India fired missiles on May 7, killing 31 civilians. Pakistan immediately responded and shot down five Indian aircraft, including Rafale jets.
But drone warfare has added a new dimension to the fear of the conflict reaching heavily populated areas.
Ali, the Lahore resident, says there is a lot of uncertainty and anxiety.
“We have our daily routine, our work life…that doesn’t stop. But we are living in a constant state of alertness,” he says.
Any confirmed jet downing would not only dent New Delhi’s military prestige, but also signal its miscalculation in assessing Pakistan’s upgraded aerial strength.
The escalation has fueled nationalist rhetoric on both sides as New Delhi and Islamabad scramble to figure out what the next step the rival intends to take.
Pakistani singer Ali Zafar, posted on X and said that he heard the sound of blasts from his home in the aftermath of Indian drone attacks on Lahore.
“We just heard blasts from our home,” he said, urging the world to wake up and “halt this madness”.
“To those beating the drums of war,” Zafar asked if they “truly understand what a war between two nuclear nations could mean?”
“This isn’t a movie. War is devastation. Innocent lives — children, families — pay the price,” he added.
A teacher, who wished to remain anonymous and who also lives in Lahore’s Walton area with her family, said they heard the sound of a low siren around 6:45 am, followed by the echo of a blast. Then another.
“My cousin who lives nearby also heard it. Her children were asked not to come to school. A few hours later, there was confirmation that drones were shot down – that is when we knew what had happened. Otherwise, we were depending on WhatsApp groups.”
After what happened in the morning, the teacher, 37, said that she is at home with her family and they are not going outside.
“We are glued to the TV for more information. We can hear sounds from the outside, but not sure what it is. Initially, we thought this was a one-time thing, but now we feel the situation is serious. How could they [India] know these locations…it is worrisome,” she said.
Pakistan’s military spokesman, Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, said four personnel of the Pakistan Army had been injured as one Indian drone “managed to engage in a military target near Lahore partially”.
New Delhi said India had responded to an overnight missile and drone attack from Pakistan. “The debris of these attacks is now being recovered from a number of locations that prove the Pakistani attacks,” India’s Ministry of Defence said in a statement.
In Rawalpindi, the city adjacent to Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, S. Khan Orakzai, 27, had to come to terms with the fact that an Indian drone was shot down over the road he travels on every day.
The debris of that drone had crashed near the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium. “I take the route via the stadium - where several cricket matches have taken place over the years, every day for work and to go to Islamabad,” he told TRT World.
In an exclusive interview with TRT World, Islamabad's top diplomat affirms Pakistan's readiness to counter any future aggression by India and accuses New Delhi of attempting to sabotage 1960 water-sharing treaty between the two countries.
Things down south
In Karachi, an IT consultant and resident of Gulshan-e-Hadeed said that he was already at work when he heard that a drone was shot down in his neighbourhood.
The thirty-four-year-old consultant told TRT World that the area where the drone fell was mostly a residential locality with no military or government facilities in the immediate vicinity. “It is a very closed neighbourhood and community,” he added.
Liaquat Ali, 54, a cook who lives in Karachi, said his family in their ancestral village in Gagga, a few hours away from Lahore, has to evacuate because of the tensions.
“My village is near Barki, which is 40 minutes from Lahore. When India attacked us on Tuesday night, I was on alert. My wife, children, sister and brothers live there and tend to our animals and field. On Wednesday, when I spoke to them, they said there was some ‘hulchul’ (movement) there and they were scared. They had heard blasts,” he told TRT World.
After his call, he spoke to his brother, who works in Saudi Arabia and decided it was time to move the family to Lahore.
“But now, looking at the situation in Lahore, I am thinking it might be better to move them to my cousin’s village or somehow bring them to Karachi so at least we are together. I am not afraid for my life – I used to be in the army. I am afraid for my children and wife.”
