|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
JAMMU (AFP) - An army spokesperson reported to the Press Trust of India that at least 10 Pakistani troops and an Indian soldier were killed in clashes in the northern frontier region of Naugam on Tuesday. The official said intermittent firing was going in the area, and accused Pakistani soldiers of launching an unprovoked attack "taking advantage of bad weather, poor visibility and thick forests." Military officials in the Kashmir winter capital Jammu, meanwhile, said exploding mortar shells, fired by Pakistani troops, in the areas of Palanwalan and Nowshera, northwest of Jammu, injured three civilians, including a woman, overnight. They said the Pakistani fire was intended to provide cover for Muslim opposition members sneaking into the Indian zone of divided Kashmir. Army spokesperson Major Sanjay Khanna in Jammu said at least 1,800 mortar shells had pounded Palanwalan and Nowshera sectors since cross-border artillery duels escalated on Monday, adding that Indian troops in the divided territory have also opened fire to silence the enemy guns, while a defense ministry spokesperson in New Delhi accused Pakistan of starting the cross-border attacks. "It is an old ploy. They [Pakistan] open fire on one sector and then infiltrate terrorists at another sector. The firing is also a cover for the militants to enter in Kashmir," the spokesman said. He said the cross-border firing did not involve high-caliber artillery. "Ninety-nine percent of the shells are mortar." "We are only retaliating to ensure that their guns are silenced" along the Line of Control that divides the Indian and Pakistani zones, the spokesperson said. India, which controls the southern two-thirds of Kashmir, accuses Pakistan of arming and training the Muslim opposition, a charge Islamabad denies. The struggle for an independent Islamic state in the Indian part of Kashmir has claimed some 34,000 lives since 1989. The two countries have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since 1947, and came dangerously close to a fourth war last summer when India launched a full-scale military offensive to evict Pakistani-backed forces from the Kargil peaks of Kashmir. |
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
