Cross-border firing between Indian and Pakistani troops has claimed the lives of at least two Pakistani soldiers in the disputed region of Kashmir. The two nuclear-armed countries blame each other for starting the flareup.
Pakistani forces “befittingly responded to Indian unprovoked firing” at several points along the de facto border, the army said in a statement, DPA reported.
India said its special forces carried out “surgical strikes” across the heavily militarized line-of-control dividing Kashmir on Thursday to thwart a series of militant attacks being planned against major cities.
Lieutenant General Ranbir Singh, the army’s director general of military operations, said the Pakistani military had been informed of the operation against the militants.
Pakistan’s military denied the attack that killed two of its soldiers was the result of an incursion into its area of control in Kashmir.
“There has been no surgical strike by India, instead there had been cross-border fire initiated and conducted by India,” a Pakistani military statement said.
India said the cross border operation left two of its soldiers wounded. An Indian soldier was also captured by Pakistan in another area, both countries confirmed.
The cross-border skirmishes come as tensions are rising in Indian-administered Kashmir, as security forces struggle to contain widening unrest among the Muslim-majority population that has left nearly 80 civilians dead. Renewed protests erupted in Kashmir after security forces killed a separatist leader on July 8.
