Pakistan: At least four dead near the Indian border
July 16, 2015
Pakistan said at least four of its civilians were killed and five were wounded in artillery fire that struck villages Thursday near the border with India, blaming the archrival neighbor for the casualties.
The two countries exchanged gunfire and mortar bombs along their disputed frontier, days after the leaders of the nuclear-armed rivals agreed to high-level talks.
The Pakistani civilians were killed "due to Indian unprovoked firing", the Pakistani military said in statements on the clashes. India said a women on its side of the frontier was killed in Pakistani firing the previous day.
The shelling occurred in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir and the border villages near the eastern Pakistani city of Sialkot, the Pakistani army statement said. There was no immediate comment from India on the shelling.
Islamabad summoned India's diplomatic envoy to its Foreign Office and protested over the incident, as well as over what it described as a violation of its airspace the day before. The Pakistani military claimed to have shot down an Indian spy drone on Wednesday. A photograph released by the military appeared to show a small, unarmed commercially available model. India rejected the allegations, saying none of its drones "crossed into the Pakistani side."
India and Pakistan, which fought three wars since both the countries got independence from British rule in 1947, regularly exchange fire along the border area, blaming one another for the incidents. The region of Kashmir is at the root of a long conflict between the two nuclear-armed countries, as both of them administer parts of it separately but claim the region in its entirety.
Hopes for warmer ties were raised last week when Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of a summit in Russia and agreed that their national security advisers would hold talks. Modi also agreed to visit Pakistan in 2016.
dr/jil (AP, dpa, Reuters)