[In August, India withdrew Kashmir’s semiautonomous status, shut down communications in the region and detained thousands of people. The moves incensed Pakistan, which considers itself the defender of Kashmiri Muslims.]
By
Joanna Slater
 |
|
A
man stands in front of his damaged house Sunday after cross-border shelling
in
Jora in the Neelum Valley of Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
(Sajjad
Qayyum/Afp Via Getty Images)
|
NEW DELHI — India and Pakistan exchanged fire
across the line dividing the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir on Saturday
and Sunday, killing nine civilians and soldiers, according to authorities in
both countries.
It was one of the deadliest sequences this
year at the Line of Control, the highly militarized frontier where soldiers
from the two countries regularly trade small-arms and artillery fire.
The barrage came amid increased tension
between the nuclear-armed rivals.
In August, India withdrew Kashmir’s
semiautonomous status, shut down communications in the region and detained
thousands of people. The moves incensed Pakistan, which considers itself the
defender of Kashmiri Muslims.
India accuses Pakistan of stoking a
three-decade insurgency against Indian rule in Kashmir by sending fighters and
arms across the Line of Control. Pakistan denies the accusations.
Five civilians and one soldier were killed on
Pakistan’s side of the Line of Control, a spokesman for the Pakistani army said
Sunday. Two Indian soldiers and one civilian were also killed, a spokesman for
the Indian Defense Ministry said.
India and Pakistan claimed to have killed
larger numbers of the other country’s soldiers in the incident, but such
assertions could not be verified independently.
Gen. Bipin Rawat of the Indian Army told
reporters that the exchange began when militants attempted to cross into
Indian-controlled territory. Pakistan rejected the accusation and said India’s
firing was “indiscriminate and unprovoked.”
Exchanges of fire across the Line of Control
have increased in recent years, an ongoing confrontation that some analysts
have called a “war by other means.”
The two countries reached a cease-fire
agreement in 2003, and for several years, relative calm prevailed on the de
facto frontier in Kashmir. Since 2014, however, cease-fire violations have
jumped.
Last year was the worst year in 15 years for
such cross-border firings, according to data from the independent Indo-Pak
Conflict Monitor. Each side reported 2,000 or more incidents.
Read more
