New Delhi: Foreign secretary Vikram Misri on Friday (May 9) rejected Pakistan’s denial of conducting drone attacks on Indian cities, calling its counter-claim that India had targeted its own cities a “deranged fantasy”.Following India’s missile strikes in the early hours of May 7 on nine sites housing what it described as “terror infrastructure” inside Pakistan, New Delhi stated that Islamabad had launched a wave of drones and missiles aimed at Indian military installations in northern and western India.In response, India said it targeted Pakistani air defence systems “in the same domain in the same intensity”.The missile strikes followed the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam, which left 26 civilians dead and which India blamed on Pakistan.India on Friday reported another wave of drones, this time numbering in the hundreds, originating from Pakistan on the night of May 8, which the Indian army said appeared to be aimed at testing India’s air defence network.India responded by launching drones at four air defence sites in Pakistan, one of which was reportedly destroyed.Pakistan has not only denied most of these drone attacks but has instead claimed India had fired projectiles at Amritsar.At a special media briefing on Friday, Misri dismissed the allegation, saying: “That we would attack our own cities is the kind of deranged fantasy that only the Pakistani state can come up with.”He added: “Perhaps they do it because they are well-versed in such action, as their history would show.”He stated that the “official and blatantly farcical denial of these attacks that Pakistan carried out by the Pakistani state machinery” was another example of Islamabad’s “duplicity” and the “new depths that they are plumbing in their quest for disinformation”.Misri also challenged Pakistan’s claim of not targeting any religious places, pointing to heavy border shelling that hit a gurdwara and a convent-run school in Poonch.He also said that Pakistan had made a “blatant lie” that India had targeted the Nankana Sahib gurdwara through a drone attack.“As we saw in the Pahalgam attack, Pakistan is again trying desperately to impart a communal hue to the situation with an intention to create discord. Again, we are not surprised. India’s steadfast unity in itself is a challenge to Pakistan,” said Misri.Asked whether India had any reports on the aftermath of the strike on Bahawalpur, Misri said the facility was the headquarters of the Jaish-e-Mohammad and linked it to the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.“And the attack on Bahawalpur, on that facility of the Jaish-e-Mohammad in Bahawalpur is, I would imagine, a fitting part of this unfortunate incident,” he said.A day earlier, when asked about reports that 100 terrorists had been killed in the May 7 strikes, Misri had declined to confirm the figure, saying an assessment would take more time.Pakistan has claimed civilians were killed in the missile strikes, but India maintains that the dead were terrorists based at the targeted sites.Misri referred to a photograph of Abdur Rauf, a US-designated terrorist, leading funeral prayers in Muridke, flanked by army officers and coffins draped in Pakistani flags.At the briefing, Misri also outlined recent diplomatic outreach. External affairs minister S. Jaishankar spoke with UK foreign secretary David Lammy and Norwegian foreign minister Espen Barth Eide, both of whom also held talks with Pakistani foreign minister M. Ishaq Dar and his deputy.Jaishankar said his conversation with Lammy focused on counter-terrorism. To Eide, he conveyed that India’s response had been “targeted and measured”.Had a phone call with UK Foreign Secretary @DavidLammy this afternoon.Our discussions centered around countering terrorism, for which there must be zero-tolerance.🇮🇳 🇬🇧— Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) May 9, 2025Lammy posted that he reiterated to both countries that “if this escalates further, nobody wins”, while Eide wrote that he “urged restraint and dialogue”.The Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, Adel Al-Jubeir, was also in Islamabad and met with Dar on Friday, just a day after meeting with Indian interlocutors in New Delhi.