Border firing kills 10 civilians

9/2/2015 3:40:20 AM

(MENAFN- The Peninsula)Pakistani activists from Shabab-e-Milli party shout anti-Indian slogans during a protest against cross-border fire along the India-Pakistan Line of Control in Peshawar yesterday.

Islamabad: At least 10 civilians were killed yesterday as India and Pakistan traded fire across their disputed border officials said less than a week after high-level talks were aborted amid a row over Kashmir.

Six died near the city of Sialkot in Pakistan’s Punjab province and at least four villagers were killed in Indian-administered Kashmir. Officials said more than 50 were wounded.

A meeting between the Indian and Pakistani national security advisors in New Delhi last Sunday was called off at the last minute amid a dispute about whether the agenda should include Kashmir the Himalayan territory both sides control in part but claim in full.

In a statement issued to the media the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Pakistan summoned the Indian High Commissioner in Islamabad to lodge protest against ceasefire violations. "The Government of Pakistan strongly protested over the latest ceasefire violations by India in Harpal and Chaprar sectors at the Working Boundary resulting in shahadat (martyrdom) of 6 civilians including a woman and a child" the statement said

The two sides regularly fire shells and mortars across the disputed border both in Kashmir and to the south in Punjab killing civilians.

A senior Pakistani security official said that Indian forces began firing around 3am yesterday and continued intermittently during the morning.

“Six civilians embraced shahadat and 46 were severely injured including 22 females due to Indian unprovoked firing/shelling on working boundary near Sialkot in Chaprar and Harpal sector” a statement from the Pakistani military said adding that they had returned fire.

In Indian-controlled Kashmir Border Security Force (BSF) official Rakesh Kumar Sharma accused Pakistan of targeting civilians with “unprovoked” mortar fire.

“Four villagers died in the shelling from across the border three of them were killed early morning and one died of injuries in a hospital later” Pawan Kotwal the top administrator of the region said.

Another BSF officer J S Oberio put the number of injured at 16 saying at least 10 border posts and several villages were targeted by Pakistani troops.

Pakistan and India have fought two of their three wars over the Himalayan region since both gained independence in 1947 and it remains a major source of tension.

About a dozen militant groups have been fighting since 1989 for either the independence of the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir or its merger with Pakistan.

Shelling across the de facto border known as the Line of Control (LoC) in disputed Kashmir and the “working boundary” in Punjab has been on the rise this month.

Pakistan's failure to hand over or prosecute the alleged masterminds of the 2008 Mumbai attacks has infuriated India particularly when the suspected ringleader Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was freed on bail.

Islamabad for its part insists talks must be wide-ranging and include thorny issues like Kashmir.

AFP

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