India says shelling kills 2 soldiers

SRINAGAR: Two Indian soldiers were killed by Pakistani troops along the highly militarised frontier that divides disputed Kashmir between the two rivals, India’s army said yesterday.

Pakistani soldiers used mortars and automatic gunfire overnight to strike at Indian positions in the Sunderbani sector along the Line of Control in violation of the cease-fire accord of 2003 between the nuclear-armed neighbours, said Indian army spokesman Col Nitin Joshi.

Col Joshi called the Pakistani firing and shelling “unprovoked and indiscriminate” and said Indian soldiers retaliated “strongly and effectively”.

There was no immediate reaction from Pakistan.

In the past, both countries have accused the other of initiating border skirmishes leading to casualties on both sides.

This year, soldiers from the two nations have been engaged in fierce border skirmishes along the rugged and mountainous Line of Control, as well as a lower-altitude 200-kilometre boundary separating Indiancontrolled Kashmir and the Pakistani province of Punjab.

The fighting earlier this year sent thousands of border residents to temporary shelters for days.

India and Pakistan have a long history of bitter relations over Kashmir, a Himalayan territory claimed by both in its entirety. They have fought two of their three wars since 1947 over their competing claims to the region.