Modi warns India monitoring Pakistan closely

The Board of Control for Cricket in India said the Indian Premier League will resume on Saturday.

"After extensive consultations with government and security agencies, and with all the key stakeholders, the Board has decided to proceed with the remainder of the season," it said in a statement. 

A total of 17 matches will be held across six venues, which will be announced later. 

The IPL is the sport's richest tournament.

It was suspended last week as fighting escalated between India and Pakistan. 

Pakistani Ambassador to Germany Saqlain Syedah told DW the international community must address the issue of Kashmir.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has vowed to deliver a strong response to any future "terrorist attack," after a weekend ceasefire with Pakistan halted several days of military conflict between the neighbors.

"If another terrorist attack against India is carried out, a strong response will be given," Modi said in a televised address to the nation, adding that New Delhi would not tolerate "nuclear blackmail" in the event of conflict.

He also said Pakistan must dismantle its "terrorist infrastructure" if it wants to be "saved," delivering his first public remarks since last week’s deadly military clashes between the two countries.

"I will tell the global community also, if we talk to Pakistan, it will be about terrorism only... it will be about Pakistan-occupied Kashmir," Modi said in a televised address, referring to the region administered by Pakistan.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made his first public comment on the recent military conflict between India and Pakistan, stating that the Indian Army had been given full operational freedom during the clashes.

"We gave a free hand to the Indian Army to bury the terrorists,'" Modi said.

Modi said more than 100 "terrorists" were killed in India's strikes and that the strikes specifically targeted terrorist hideouts and training centres located in Pakistan.

The recent hostilities came in in the wake of the April 22 attack, which saw 26 people, mostly tourists, killed by Islamist militants near the mountain town of Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir.

India blamed Pakistan for backing the militants and launched "Operation Sindoor," a series of airstrikes in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Pakistan denied the accusations and carried out strikes against Indian targets.

Both agreed over the weekend to a ceasefire that seems to be largely holding. 

US President Donald Trump says it was US intervention that helped prevent a nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan, following the ceasefire agreement reached by the two South Asian rivals after a series of clashes.

"We stopped a nuclear conflict. I think it could have been a bad nuclear war, millions of people could have been killed. So I'm very proud of that," Trump told reporters at the White House.

Expert teams in India defused unexploded bombs along the border with Pakistan, the AFP news agency is reporting.

The move is to allow displaced Kashmiri villagers to begin returning home following a ceasefire between the two nuclear-armed nations.

Tens of thousands had fled their homes on the Indian-administered side of the disputed Himalayan region last week, as intense artillery fire reduced some homes to rubble.

The ceasefire, announced on Saturday, brought an end to four days of missile, drone, and artillery exchanges. The violence has been the worst violence between India and Pakistan since 1999.

Police had issued formal warnings urging the public "NOT to under any circumstances approach, touch, tamper with, or attempt to move any suspicious object resembling an explosive shell or device."

Bomb disposal squads were deployed in Uri, near the de facto border, to ensure homes were safe before civilians returned.

"We started at homes where people had reported unexploded ordinance," senior police officer Gurinderpal Singh told AFP. He declined to disclose how many teams were involved or their specific locations.

"Every piece of ordinance is unique and needs to be handled very carefully," Singh added, noting that villagers were only being allowed to return to "areas that have been cleared."

India and Pakistan's military operations chiefs held a phone conversation on Monday evening, CNN-News18 has reported, only two days after the nuclear-armed neighbors agreed to a ceasefire following intense clashes last week.

The two countries had exchanged missile, drone and artillery fire across each other’s airspace over four days of conflict.

Earlier the Indian military said both sides' director generals of military operations would speak by telephone, but gave no further information. 

Pakistan's army spokesperson told local media that his country reacted rather mildly to India's army operation against it due to the risk of "mutual annihilation."

According to Lt. Gen. Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the conflict between India and Pakistan "can lead to the peril of more than 1.6 billion people."

Chaudhry said that there was "no space" for war between New Delhi and Islamabad. 

"If anyone wants to carve out this space for war, he is actually carving our space for mutual annihilation," he said.

The spokesman said that Pakistan's military response had been carried out "in a very mature manner."

After the worst escalation between the two countries in the past two decades, a ceasefire has been in place since Saturday.

DW correspondent Shalu Yadav, speaking about 15 miles (24 km) from the Line of Control between India and Pakistan, said it was the first time "in days that people have woken up to a peaceful morning."

"Today there is a sigh of relief but there is still a little bit of tension on the ground," she added when asked about the mood amongst locals.

However, she cautioned, their safety was far from certain at the moment. Although India and Pakistan have technically had a ceasefire over the region since 2003, it has been broke "time and time again."

"It's gonna take a lot of effort on both sides to iron out the details of the [most recent] ceasefire," Yadav said.

Yadav was speaking from the town of Rajouri in the Jammu region of Indian-administered Kashmir.

Speaking to the Indian Express daily, Germany's ambassador to New Dehli, Philipp Ackermann, was asked if he saw the violence in Pahalgam as similar to the 2008 terror attacks on Mumbai that killed some 175 people.

"The Pahalgam attack was horrifying for its selective killings. It should be called a terrorist attack and has had an impact on the consciousness," Ackermann said.

"You cannot help but feel strongly when you see the families and spouses of those who have been killed. It’s heartbreaking to see the young and newly-married lose their husbands," he said.

He described the attack in Pahalgam in Indian-administered Kashmir as a "game changer."

"Pahalgam is a game changer in many ways and there’s an enormous amount of solidarity that has gone out to India."

He added that he was in Kashmir last year and had noticed how things had changed since 15 years ago when he "saw tourists everywhere."

Ackermann stressed that Germany stood with Delhi after this "attack on the heart of India" but said that "both governments know that de-escalation is the question of the hour."

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a "high level" meeting with several ministers and army chiefs.

This comes after Saturday's US-brokered ceasefire came into force, with the night being calm for the first time in days, according to India's army.

India and Pakistan's military operation chiefs are set to meet this evening to discuss the ceasefire.

India and Pakistan's chiefs of military operations are set to discuss the next steps after the US-brokered ceasefire restored calm to the border region between the countries.

After initial reports of ceasefire violations, no explosions were heard in the region overnight.

India's army said this was the first peaceful night along the country's border in recent days.

The Indian army confirmed the talks will take place in the evening local time. 

India's airport authority said the 32 airports in the country's northern and western regions that were out of operation due to the military escalation in Pakistan will now be reopened, with civil aircraft being able to make use of them with immediate effect.

This comes after a similar announcement made by Pakistan on Saturday as the announcement on the US-brokered ceasefire was made.

India and Pakistan have reopened airports that had been shut due to the escalation between the countries after a ceasefire was reached.

Senior military officials from both countries are also set to hold talks regarding the ongoing ceasefire.

On Sunday, India and Pakistan traded accusations of ceasefire violations but reported that hostilities had not intensified.

Follow this blog for the latest developments and reactions on Monday, May 12.