8 killed in india-Pakistan fighting amid high tensions

SRINAGAR (AP) — Indian and Pakistani soldiers have again targeted each other’s posts and villages along their volatile frontier in disputed Kashmir, killing at least six civilians and two Pakistani troops, officials said Saturday.

But in a sign that tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals could soon ease, a Pakistani Cabinet minister said a key train service between Pakistan and neighboring India will resume today.

Tensions have been running high since Indian aircraft crossed into Pakistan this past Tuesday, carrying out what India called a pre-emptive strike against militants blamed for a Feb. 14 suicide bombing in Indian-controlled Kashmir that killed 40 Indian troops.

Pakistan retaliated, shooting down a fighter jet on Wednesday and detaining its pilot, who was returned to India on Friday in a peace gesture.

Fighting resumed overnight Friday. Pakistan’s military said two of its soldiers were killed in an exchange of fire with Indian forces near the Line of Control that separates Kashmir between the rivals.

It marked the first fatalities for Pakistani troops since Wednesday, when tensions dramatically escalated between the nuclear-armed countries over Kashmir, which is split between them but claimed by both in its entirety.

Indian police, meanwhile, said two siblings and their mother were killed in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

The three died after a shell fired by Pakistani soldiers hit their home in the Poonch region near the Line of Control. The children’s father was critically wounded.

In Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, government official Umar Azam said Indian troops with heavy weapons “indiscriminately targeted border villagers” along the Line of Control, killing a boy and wounding three other people. He said several homes were destroyed by Indian shelling.