PAKISTAN claimed today to have “credible intelligence” suggesting that India is planning a military attack within days, as tensions between the nuclear-armed neighbours spiralled following a terrorist atrocity in Kashmir.

The warning came amid cross-border gunfire along the Line of Control, the de facto border dividing Kashmir, and as Pakistanis in India scrambled to leave the country after New Delhi ordered them out in the wake of last week’s massacre near Pahalgam, which left 26 people dead, most of them Indian tourists.

The attack, claimed by a previously unknown militant group calling itself the Kashmir Resistance, has triggered major diplomatic and security repercussions. 

India swiftly cancelled visas, recalled diplomats, suspended a key water-sharing treaty with Islamabad and sealed its border. 

Pakistan responded by closing its airspace to Indian airlines.

The country's government said the intelligence showed that India planned military action against it in the next 24 to 36 hours “on the pretext of baseless and concocted allegations of involvement.”

Islamabad denies any link to the massacre.

There was no immediate on-the-record comment from Indian officials.

But, speaking anonymously, some said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given the armed forces “complete operational freedom” to determine the timing, targets and strategy of India’s response. 

At the Attari border crossing in India’s northern Punjab state, Pakistani families rushed to leave. 

Some were deported by police, while others came voluntarily, after a Indian government deadline expired on Sunday.

“We have settled our families here. We request the government not to uproot our families,” said Sara Khan, a Pakistani national who has lived in Indian-controlled Kashmir since 2017 and was ordered to leave without her husband, who has an Indian passport.

Holding her 14-day-old infant, she said: “They told me: ‘You are illegal and you should go’.”

At least three tourists who survived the Pahalgam attack said that the gunmen had singled out Hindu men and shot them at close range. 

The dead also included a Nepalese citizen and a local Muslim pony ride operator.

Aishanya Dwivedi, whose husband was killed, said a gunman had approached the couple and challenged him to recite the Islamic declaration of faith. 

Her husband replied that he was Hindu and the attacker shot him “point blank in the head,” she said, adding: “He was on my lap. I was soaked in his blood.”