But fresh violence raged in Kashmir, with seven people killed in the Indian-administered part of the tinder-box territory, suggesting that the crisis may not be over yet.
Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman, shot down on Wednesday over Kashmir - divided between the nuclear-armed rivals since 1947 - crossed into India at the famed Wagah crossing point, sporting a black eye from his ordeal.
Thousands of Indians, waving flags, singing and dancing with patriotic fervour, had gathered at the crossing point on Friday afternoon but the crowd dwindled after his release was delayed inexplicably by hours.

In New Delhi the announcement of the experienced pilot’s release was seen as a diplomatic victory, but India warned that its military remained on ‘heightened’ alert.
On Thursday and Friday both countries continued to fire barrages across the Line of Control, the de-facto border dividing Kashmir, leaving at least one person dead.
Gun battles on the Indian side left two militants and four members of the Indian security services dead, while a civilian was killed in later protests, police said.

‘Influence of terrorists and terrorism has been curtailed and it is going to be curtailed even more. This is a New India,’ prime minister Narendra Modi, facing a tough election due by May, said Friday.

‘This is an India that will return the damage done by terrorists with interest,’ he said.
India’s junior foreign minister and former army chief, Vijay Kumar Singh, tweeted that the ‘welcome’ release of the pilot was ‘the first of many steps that #Pakistan must take to reinforce their commitment to peace’.

The parents of handlebar-moustached Abhinandan were given a standing ovation by fellow passengers as they boarded a flight to Amritsar near Wagah to welcome their son.
He has become a national hero after purported footage that went viral showed him being beaten by locals after being shot down before Pakistani soldiers intervened, with social media abuzz with #GivebackAbhinandan and #Abhinandanmyhero hashtags.
His subsequent polite refusal to proffer more details than necessary - ‘I am sorry major, I am not supposed to tell you this’ - won him particular sympathy in India.
His father, a retired air force officer, told the Times of India newspaper, ‘Just look at the way he talked so bravely... a true soldier... we are proud of him.’

Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the end of British colonial rule. Both claim it in full and have fought two wars over the Himalayan territory.
Meanwhile, Russian president Vladimir Putin Thursday called Prime Minister Narendra Modi to express his deep condolences over the Pulwama terrorist attack and conveyed the solidarity of his country with New Delhi in its fight against terror, reports NDTV.
Modi thanked Putin for Russia’s steadfast support for India’s efforts to protect its interests against cross-border terror attacks, a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said.
In their telephonic conversation, the prime minister also renewed India’s commitment to strengthening bilateral cooperation in countering terrorism as a pillar of privileged and special strategic partnership. Both leaders agreed that the ‘concerned’ should stop all support to terrorism.

The two also agreed that the growing cooperation between the two countries will take their special and privileged strategic partnership from strength to strength.
President Putin reiterated the invitation to Modi to attend the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok later this year. The Prime Minister welcomed the invitation and underscored the significance of growing economic cooperation, including in the Russian Far East, between the two countries, the statement added.

Pakistan plans to lodge a complaint against India at the United Nations, accusing it of ‘eco-terrorism’ over air strikes that damaged pine trees and brought the nuclear-armed nations to blows, a government minister said on Friday.

Indian warplanes on Tuesday bombed a hilly forest area near the northern Pakistani town of Balakot, about 40 km from India’s border in the Himalayan region of Kashmir. New Delhi said it had destroyed a militant training camp and killed hundreds of ‘terrorists’.
Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi meanwhile said he was boycotting a meeting of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation held in Abu Dhabi, as India had been invited.

The tensions prompted Pakistan to close down its airspace, disrupting major routes between Europe and South Asia and grounding thousands of travellers worldwide.
Pakistan’s Civil Aviation Authority said Friday that flights could land and depart from its main airports from 13:00 GMT, and that others would be opened ‘gradually’.
About 2,000 travellers were still stranded in the Thai capital Bangkok on Friday and it will take a few more days to get them home after flights were disrupted by the latest conflict between Pakistan and India, airline officials said, reports Reuters.
Thai Airways International canceled more than a dozen flights to European cities - including London, Paris, Milan, Zurich and Frankfurt - after Pakistan closed its airspace on Wednesday amid rising tensions with India.

‘There are still about 2,000 passengers,’ Thai Airways President Sumeth Damrongchaitham told reporters at a briefing to announce the company’s financial results.
The backlog would be cleared over the next two or three days, he said.
Pakistan denied there were any such camps in the area and locals said only one elderly villager was hurt.

Climate change minister Malik Amin Aslam said Indian jets bombed a ‘forest reserve’ and the government was undertaking an environmental impact assessment, which will be the basis a complaint at the United Nations and other forums.

‘What happened over there is environmental terrorism,’ Aslam told Reuters, adding that dozens of pine trees had been felled. ‘There has been serious environmental damage.’
Two Reuters reporters who visited the site of the bombings, where four large craters could be seen, said up to 15 pine trees had been brought down by the blasts. Villagers dismissed Indian claims that hundreds of militants were killed.

The United Nations states that ‘destruction of the environment, not justified by military necessity and carried out wantonly, is clearly contrary to existing international law’, according to the UN General Assembly resolution 47/37.