Pakistan and India exchange fire as UN calls for ‘maximum restraint’
Troops exchanged fire in Kashmir amid rising tensions after a terrorist attack on tourists.
Troops from Pakistan and India exchanged fire overnight across the line of control in disputed Kashmir, officials have said, after the UN urged the nuclear-armed rivals to show “maximum restraint” after Tuesday’s massacre of Indian tourists by Islamic militants.
Relations have plunged to their lowest level in years, with India accusing Pakistan of supporting “cross-border terrorism” after gunmen carried out the worst attack on civilians in contested Muslim-majority Kashmir for a quarter of a century.
The brief exchange of small-arms fire came as police in Kashmir said they had identified three suspected attackers affiliated with the militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba they say were involved in Tuesday’s massacre of Indian tourists and released their sketches, announcing a bounty of 2m rupees (about £17,500) on the three.
A manhunt is under way in the densely forested mountains surrounding the attack site in southern Kashmir.
Syed Ashfaq Gilani, a government official in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, told Agence France-Presse on Friday that troops exchanged fire along the line of control that separates the two countries.
“There is post-to-post firing in Leepa valley overnight. There is no firing on the civilian population. Life is normal. Schools are open,” said Gilani, a senior government official in Jhelum valley district.
India’s army confirmed there had been limited firing of small arms that it said had been initiated by Pakistan, adding it had been “effectively responded to”.
Three Indian army officials told Reuters that Pakistani soldiers used small-arms to fire at an Indian position. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with departmental policy, said Indian soldiers retaliated and no casualties were reported.
There was no immediate comment from Pakistan, and the incident could not be independently verified. In the past, each side has accused the other of starting border skirmishes in Kashmir, which both claim in its entirety.
India’s army chief, Gen Upendra Dwivedi, is to lead a high-level security review in Srinagar in Indian-held Kashmir on Friday, days after militants killed 26 civilians in the disputed region in one of the worst such attacks in years.
The brazen assault, carried out in a mountain meadow near Pahalgam, has derailed prime minister Narendra Modi’s claims of restored calm in the restive Himalayan territory and sent tensions soaring between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.
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