Tens of thousands of villagers were fleeing their homes in Kashmir yesterday, as Indian and Pakistani troops bombarded each another with gunfire and mortar shells over the border separating Pakistan from India’s portion of the disputed region. At least nine civilians were killed.
Indian officials said the flare-up left five villagers dead, including one child, and 35 injured on the Indian side of the border. The Pakistani Army reported four civilians killed, including two children, and three injured.
Yesterday’s violence — considered the worst violation yet of a 2003 ceasefire between India and Pakistan — followed several meetings between the commanders of the two countries’ border forces aimed at calming tensions.
Two of the three wars between the rival nations have been fought over competing claims to Kashmir in its entirety, though the 2003 ceasefire has largely held despite small, but regular skirmishes.
Each side accused the other of firing first before dawn, saying its troops only retaliated. Both sides said the violence was happening at several points along the border, including the designated frontier dividing Pakistan from India’s Jammu and Kashmir State, as well as the UN-monitored Line of Control that slices through the mountainous region and divides it into an Indian-controlled portion and a Pakistan-administered one.
On the Indian side, officials were evacuating tens of thousands of people from the town of Arnia and nearby villages to underground bunkers and government shelters.
“There is panic. We’re trying to give them a sense of security and temporary shelters,” said Shantmanu, Jammu’s top administrator, who goes by one name.
Many saw the chaos as part of what’s become a predictable cycle of violence in a region riven by decades-old animosities.
A similar outburst of cross-border violence in August last year led 15,000 villagers to flee.
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