Indian and Pakistani soldiers again targeted each other’s posts and villages along their volatile frontier in disputed Kashmir, killing at least six civilians and wounding six others, officials said Saturday, VOA news reports.
Tensions have been running high since Indian aircraft crossed into Pakistan on 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 Wednesday and detaining its pilot, who was returned to India on Friday in a peace gesture.
Cross-border fighting
Fighting resumed overnight into dawn Saturday, leaving two siblings and their mother dead 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 that divides Kashmir between the nuclear-armed rivals, Indian police said. 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.
Shelling and small arms fire began again Saturday after a lull of a few hours. A Pakistani military statement said two civilians were killed and two others wounded in the fresh fighting. The Indian army said Pakistani troops attacked Indian posts at several places along the militarized line.
Suicide attack
Officials from both countries used the routine description for the military confrontations, saying their soldiers retaliated “befittingly,” and blamed each other for “unprovoked” violations of the 2003 cease-fire accord at several sectors along the Kashmir frontier, targeting army posts as well as villages.
Since tensions escalated following the Feb. 14 suicide attack, world leaders have scrambled to head off an all-out war between India and Pakistan. The rivals have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since their independence from British rule in 1947.
The current violence marks the most serious escalation of their long-simmering conflict since 1999, when Pakistan’s military sent a ground force into Indian-controlled Kashmir. That year also saw an Indian fighter jet shoot down a Pakistani naval aircraft, killing all 16 on board.
The latest wave of tensions began after the militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing by a Kashmiri militant on Indian paramilitary forces. India has long accused Pakistan of cultivating such militant groups to attack it. Pakistan has said it was not involved in that attack and that it was ready to help New Delhi in the investigation.
Thousands flee fighting
On both sides of Kashmir, thousands of people have fled to government-run temporary shelters or relatives’ homes in safer areas to escape deadly and relentless shelling along the frontier. Many of these villages dot the rugged and mountainous frontier, which is marked by razor wire, watch towers and bunkers amid tangled bushes, forests and fields of rice and corn.
“These battles are fought on our bodies, in our homes and fields, and we still don’t have anything in our hands. We are at the mercy of these soldiers,” said Mohammed Akram, a resident in the Mendhar area in Indian-controlled Kashmir.