Four people, including two children, have been killed and seven others wounded in an exchange of fire between Indian and Pakistani troops in Pakistan-administered Kashmir’s district of Kotli, officials said.
Five Indian soldiers were injured in the Akhnoor sector by Pakistan’s shelling.
“So far, four people have been killed in the shelling,” Nasrullah Khan, a senior hospital official told Al Jazeera by telephone on Tuesday night.
Khan said the dead included a woman and her two children in Nakyal along the Line of Control (LoC), the heavily-militarised de facto border between India and Pakistan.
“An Indian mortar shell hit a house in Nakyal sector along the Line of Control that killed a mother, daughter and son,” local disaster management authority official Shariq Tariq told AFP news agency.
Another death was reported from Koiratta town in the semi-autonomous region, Khan said.
Meanwhile, Indian media reports said at least five of its soldiers were also wounded in cross-border firing along the LoC.
The civilian deaths in Pakistan-administered Kashmir came as India earlier on Tuesday said it had launched air strikes near Balakot, a town 50km from the LoC inside Pakistan’s territory.
The Pakistan Army used heavy weaponry, firing heavy calibre weapons targeting 12 to 15 places in Jammu, Rajouri and Poonch districts since 6:30 pm, the Indian army said in a statement. The sectors targeted include Krishna Gati, Balakote, Khari Karmara, Mankote, Tarkundi in Poonch district, Kalal, Baba Khori, Kalsian, Laam and Jhangar areas in Rajouri and Pallanwala and
Pakistan had shelled forward posts in the state’s Poonch, Mendhar and Nowshera sectors earlier in the day too, prompting a firm response from the Indian forces.
Pakistani troops fired mortar shells and small arms across the Line of Control at several areas in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday. Five Indian soldiers were injured in the Akhnoor sector by Pakistan’s shelling.
Related link:
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