By HARI KUMAR and SALMAN MASOOD
NOV. 23, 2016
NOV. 23, 2016
Tensions Rise at Kashmir Frontline
India's interior minister, Rajnath Singh, said to "trust the Indian army" as fighting intensified in the disputed Kashmir region. Pakistani officials said India fired into Kashmir on Wednesday, killing at least nine people. By REUTERS on Publish DateNovember 23, 2016.
NEW DELHI — Shelling and gunfire intensified on Wednesday on the de facto border between India and Pakistan in the Kashmir region, killing nine civilians on a bus one day after the Indian Army promised retribution for what it said was the killing of three of its soldiers.
Pakistan said Indian troops fired on a bus in the Neelam Valley on Pakistan’s side of the Line of Control in the disputed Kashmir region, killing the nine passengers and seriously wounding nine others. The Indian military also fired on rescue workers in an ambulance trying to reach the wounded, Pakistan said.
In other violence reported on Wednesday, the Indian military also killed three Pakistani soldiers, including a captain, Pakistan said, and Pakistani forces retaliated, killing seven Indian soldiers.
A high-level Pakistani diplomat, Deputy High Commissioner Syed Haider Shah, called the violence “a serious escalation of the situation” and a “grave breach of international and humanitarian law.”
Brig. P. S. Gotra of the Indian Army’s northern command defended India’s actions but did not comment on Pakistan’s allegations that Indian forces had targeted civilians and fired on an ambulance.
“It was a proper fire assault from our side as a retribution of yesterday’s incident,” said Brigadier Gotra, referring to the killing of three Indian soldiers on Tuesday. He denied that any Indian soldiers had been killed on Wednesday.
Exchanges of gunfire along the Line of Control that divides Kashmir have been unrelenting in recent months, despite a cease-fire agreement that was signed in 2003. The violence was amplified Wednesday, with Pakistan asserting that civilians had been killed. Exchanges of fire took place at more than a dozen locations, Brigadier Gotra said.
The Indian Army, on its official Twitter site, said the directors general of military operations of the two sides held talks on a hotline on Wednesday evening at Pakistan’s request.
Maj. Gen. Sahir Shamshad Mirza, Pakistan’s director general of military operations, said in a statement that in the conversation he complained that targeting civilians was “highly unprofessional and unethical.”
“Pakistan reserves the right to respond at the time and place of our choosing,” General Mirza said.
His Indian counterpart, Lt. Gen. Ranbir Singh, said he “expressed grief” about the civilian casualties on the Pakistani side but asserted that his military had targeted only locations where cease-fire violations against India were being initiated. He complained of the mutilation of Indian soldiers by militants believed to have come across the border from Pakistan.
On Tuesday, the Indian Army said that three of its soldiers had been killedon the border and that one of the bodies had been mutilated. The army promised to retaliate for “this cowardly act.” In past statements, mutilation has referred to beheading; it was the second time in recent weeks that an Indian serviceman’s body had been reported to have been mutilated.
Brigadier Gotra said Tuesday that it was unclear whether the soldiers had been killed by the Pakistani Army, militants or a combination of the two.
Tensions between India and Pakistan have intensified since September, when militants killed 19 Indian soldiers at an army base in the border area. India said the militants had crossed over from Pakistan, and it announced a few days later that its army had conducted “surgical strikes” on militant bases along the Line of Control. Indians celebrated the response as a powerful assertion of force against Pakistan.
In a statement on Wednesday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan complained that “India has failed to comprehend the gravity of the situation.”
India and Pakistan each reported that they had summoned the other’s diplomatic representatives to register protests against continued cease-fire violations, among other grievances.
Mr. Shah, Pakistan’s deputy high commissioner, said more than 50 Pakistani civilians, including women and children, had been killed in recent violations of the truce. At least a dozen Indian civilians have been killed, said an official with the Indian border security force.
Follow Hari Kumar and Salman Masood on Twitter @HariNYT and @salmanmasood.
Hari Kumar reported from New Delhi, and Salman Masood from Islamabad, Pakistan. Geeta Anand contributed reporting from New Delhi.
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