Islamabad: India and Pakistan exchanged gunfire and mortar bombs along the Line of Control (LoC) on Thursday, killing five civilians and injuring more than a dozen, Pakistan said, days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif agreed to high-level talks.
According to the Pakistan army, at least five Pakistani civilians were killed "due to Indian unprovoked firing". This came even as India said that a woman on its side of the frontier was killed in Pakistani firing.
Soldiers along their heavily militarised boundary have regularly traded fire for decades but clashes become less frequent after a 2003 ceasefire in Kashmir.
Hopes for warmer ties were raised last week when Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met PM 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.
The Indian army said Pakistani troops fired at five of its forward bases and six villagers on Wednesday, when the woman was killed. "Pakistani Rangers resorted to unprovoked firing using small arms and mortars," an Indian military spokesman said.
Comments
0 comment