India on Tuesday (March 17, 2026) strongly criticised Pakistan for its “cowardly and unconscionable” airstrike on a hospital in Afghanistan that killed nearly 400 people.
India said the airstrike on the civilian medical facility marked a grave violation of international law and Afghanistan’s sovereignty.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), meanwhile, flagged the heavy civilian casualties in the Pakistani attack on Kabul’s hospital and called for an immediate ceasefire.
Pakistan had targeted the Omid Addiction Treatment Centre in Kabul on Monday (March 16), resulting in massive human casualties.
In a sharp verbal attack on Islamabad, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said: “This is a barbaric act of violence that has claimed the lives of a large number of civilians in a facility that can by no means be justified as a military target.”
MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal accused Pakistan of attempting to “dress up a massacre as a military operation.”
Jaiswal said the airstrike was a “blatant assault” on Afghanistan’s sovereignty and cautioned that such actions posed a direct threat to regional peace and stability.
Describing the timing of the attack during Ramzan month, he called it “particularly reprehensible” and asked the global community to hold Pakistan accountable.
Extending “condolences” to the families of victims of the Pakistani airstrikes, India reiterated its support to Kabul on its territorial integrity.
The Pakistani airstrikes damaged the hospital’s structure extensively, causing the collapse of sections of the hospital building.
Kabul officials said Islamabad used precision-guided munitions in the attack, and its impact resulted in the hospital building’s collapse and the human casualties.
Afghanistan’s emergency response agency worked through the night to pull out any survivors from the building debris, while other hospitals nearby were overwhelmed by the rush of the injured.
Condemning the attack, Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities called the airstrike “a clear violation of international humanitarian laws” and lodged a strong protest.
They asserted that the hospital was a purely civilian facility with no links to militant activity.
The Taliban government called for an independent international investigation into the incident and accountability for those responsible.
Pakistan quickly denied that it deliberately targeted civilians, claiming the military operation was hitting “terror infrastructure” as it had received credible intelligence inputs.