Four more die in Kashmir cross-border gunfire

Three civilians and a soldier were killed in Kashmir yesterday in cross-border fire between the Indian and Pakistani armies.

Twenty-one soldiers, militants and civilians were killed in the latest wave of violence last week on the militarised border that divides the disputed Himalayan region.

Indian Army spokesman Col NN Joshi said an Indian soldier was killed yesterday by Pakistani fire in the Poonch sector along the de facto border known as the line of control.

Two civilians, including a 15-year-old boy were killed in a separate cross-border assault along a stretch of uncontested frontier between Kashmir and the Pakistani province of Punjab.

Pakistan’s foreign office said yesterday that a civilian, 60, was killed and two others, including a 6-year-old child, were injured in firing by Indian soldiers.

Four civilians died over the previous two days, the foreign office said.

Both India and Pakistan regularly exchange fire along the border, parts of which are disputed, and civilian casualties are common. But this week has been particularly bloody.

Pakistan said four of its soldiers were killed in Indian fire on Monday. Earlier last week Indian soldiers also killed five militants whom they said were attempting to infiltrate from Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

Two Indian soldiers and two civilians were killed on Friday when mortars fired by Pakistani soldiers landed in populated areas along the border in the R S Pura area.

On Friday, India and Pakistan

India and Pakistan both summoned each other’s diplomats in protest at the latest spate of killings

both summoned each other’s diplomats to register protests over the killings, accusing the other of initiating the cross-border fire.

The bitter rivals fought two of their wars over control of Kashmir, which has been divided between the nuclear-armed neighbours since Partition in 1947.