At least four Pakistani civilians were killed when Indian border forces targeted villages in the disputed valley of Kashmir, days after deadly clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in the same region.
Indian troops fired at army posts and civilians in the villages with heavy weapons overnight, the Pakistani military said in a statement on June 18. The incident occurred across the Line of Control (LoC), a de facto frontier that divides Kashmir in two parts administered by Pakistan and India.
Deadly border skirmishes have flared up since India stripped the parts of Kashmir under its control of a special constitutional status in August last year.
The Pakistani military has claimed to have shot down at least two Indian surveillance quad copters in recent weeks while trying to intrude into the country’s airspace.
The latest incident between Pakistan and India came days after at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a clash with Chinese forces in the same region in their worse altercation in decades.
Kashmir, a scenic Himalayan valley, is at the centre of conflicts India has with both Pakistan and China, making it one of the most militarized regions in the world. Both Pakistan and China have fought wars against India, and there are fears that border clashes could snowball into a full-blown conflict.