Border Security Force (BSF) soldiers stand guard along fencing near the India-Pakistan Chachwal border outpost, some 65km north from Jammu.
Agencies/Jammu
Pakistani troops killed two Indian soldiers yesterday near the tense disputed border between the nuclear-armed neighbours in Kashmir and one of the bodies was badly mutilated, the Indian army said.
The firefight broke out at about noon yesterday after an Indian patrol discovered Pakistani troops about half a kilometre inside Indian territory, an army spokesman said.
A ceasefire has been in place since 2003 along the Line of Control that divides the countries, but it is periodically violated by both sides and Pakistan said Indian troops killed a Pakistani soldier on Sunday.
Relations had been slowly improving over the last few years following a rupture in their slow-moving peace process after the 2008 attacks on Mumbai, which were blamed by India on Pakistan-based militants.
“There was a firefight with Pakistani troops,” army spokesman Rajesh Kalia said from the mountainous Himalayan region.
“We lost two soldiers and one of them has been badly mutilated,” he added, declining to give more details on the injuries.
“The intruders were regular (Pakistani) soldiers and they were 400-500m inside our territory,” he said of the clash in Mendhar sector, 173km west by road from the city of Jammu.
Kalia, spokesman for the army’s Northern Command, said the “intrusion” was “a significant escalation ... of ceasefire violations and infiltration attempts supported by Pakistan army.”
“Pakistan army troops, having taken advantage of thick fog and mist in the forested area, were moving towards (their) own posts when an alert area domination patrol spotted and engaged the intruders,” he said.
“The firefight between Pakistan and own troops continued for approximately half an hour, after which the intruders retreated back towards their side of Line of Control.”
In Islamabad, a Pakistan military spokesman denied what he called an “Indian allegation of unprovoked firing.” He declined to elaborate.
On Sunday Pakistan said Indian troops had crossed the LoC and stormed a military post. It said one Pakistani soldier was killed and another injured.
It lodged a formal protest with India on Monday over what it called an unprovoked attack.
India denied crossing the line, saying it had retaliated with small arms fire after Pakistani mortars hit a village home.
A foreign ministry spokesman said Indian troops had undertaken “controlled retaliation” on Sunday after “unprovoked firing” which damaged a civilian home.
The report of the Pakistani attack came soon after India told Pakistan “to ensure that the sanctity of LoC is upheld at all times.”
Also yesterday, Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani visited Sialkot and asked the army to remain “fully prepared to respond to the full spectrum of threats, direct or indirect, overt or covert.”
The deaths are set to undermine recent efforts to improve relations, such as opening up trade and offering more lenient visa regimes which have been a feature of talks between senior political leaders from both sides.
In 1999, Pakistan-backed infiltrators occupied the Kargil heights in northern Kashmir, and India lost hundreds of troops before re-occupying the mountains after bitter fighting that almost triggered a fourth war.
Indian military officials said the frequency of cross-border clashes has increased in recent weeks, with at least half a dozen ceasefire violations over the past week alone.
