News / Pakistan

Cross-border firing by Indian troops kill three in Kashmir: Pakistani officials

Monday, 07 November 2016 4:54 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 07 November 2016 4:56 PM ]

Pakistani villagers pose for a photograph alongside a bullet-riddled wall of their house following mortar shelling by Indian troops in the border village of Chaprar on October 25, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Pakistan’s officials say Indian troops have opened fire and killed three people, including a policeman, across the two countries’ de facto border in the disputed region of Kashmir.

Local official Zeeshan Nisar said on Monday that the latest cross-border firing, which occurred along the Line of Control (LoC), also wounded four civilians.

"A policeman, a man and a woman were killed when Indian troops opened fire across the border in Nakyal sector," media outlets quoted Nisar as saying.

Separately, three people were also wounded in firing by Indian troops in the Neelum Valley of Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

In another incident, six people including two women were wounded in overnight cross-border firing in the Madarpur sector. According to Chaudhry Altaf, a local government official, the firing also damaged more than two dozen houses and three vehicles in the area.

Meanwhile, sources say thousands of people have fled their homes due to the ongoing firing in Nakyal sector.

Pakistani troops are seen in a village near the Line of Control (LoC) in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, October 1, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Authorities have also closed more than 70 schools in Nakyal and Goi sectors on the Pakistani side of the LoC.

Last week, authorities on both sides closed hundreds of schools along frontier areas when cross-border firing killed 14 residents.

Indian and Pakistani forces have been engaged in clashes in the disputed region over the past months. Each side accuses the other of provocation.

Relations between India and Pakistan have been strained in the recent months, with New Delhi blaming Islamabad for a raid on an army base in Indian-controlled Kashmir in September, which killed 19 soldiers.

The Indian army blamed Pakistan-based militants for the assault. Islamabad denies any role in the deadly assault.

Diplomatic tensions generated between the two sides in late October, when India ordered one employee of the Pakistani High Commission out of the country, saying he was a suspected spy. Islamabad expelled an Indian diplomat in a tit-for-tat move.

In addition to that, Pakistan has recently accused eight Indian diplomats of conducting acts of “espionage and terrorism” against Islamabad.

Muslim-majority Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan, but claimed in full by both, since the two countries gained independence from Britain in 1947.

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