ISLAMABAD, July 26: Pakistani and Indian soldiers traded fire across the Line of Control (LoC) on Saturday, Pakistan’s military said.

Military spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas said the Indian army fired machinegun bursts and mortar bombs at the Pakistani side of the LoC in the Battal sector of Rawalakot district, where troops had a similar exchange of fire on July 10.

“We immediately responded and fired into the area from where the fire was coming. They later stopped firing,” he told Reuters. He said there were no casualties on the Pakistani side.

“We contacted the Indians and lodged a protest and asked for a flag meeting” of the local commanders, he added.

The Indian army denied Pakistan’s claims. Brig Gopala Krishanan Murali, an army spokesman in occupied Kashmir, said the firing had come from the Pakistani side.

“Some rogue elements, possibly infiltrators, fired rocket-propelled guns and quickly disappeared,” Murali claimed. “We didn’t return the fire.”

The armies of the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours have frequently exchanged fire across the LoC in the past but such skirmishes became very rare after they agreed on a ceasefire in late 2003.

The two countries went to the brink of their fourth war in 2002. The recent exchanges of fire on the LoC came as relations between the two countries have been strained by an attack outside the Indian embassy in Kabul earlier this month.---Reuters

Opinion

Editorial

Syria’s future
10 Dec, 2024

Syria’s future

AS Bashar al-Assad boarded a plane for exile in Moscow, the police state his family had ruled for over five decades...
Rights in peril
10 Dec, 2024

Rights in peril

IN Pakistan’s fraught landscape of human rights infringements, misery hangs in the air. What makes this year’s...
Learning from AJK
10 Dec, 2024

Learning from AJK

THE recent events in Azad Kashmir are a powerful example of how dialogue can play a constructive role in effectively...
CPEC slowdown
Updated 09 Dec, 2024

CPEC slowdown

Current CPEC slowdown doesn't mean China has lost interest in the connectivity project or in Pakistan.
Madressah bill
09 Dec, 2024

Madressah bill

A CONTROVERSY has been brewing over the Societies Registration (Amendment) Act, 2024, with the JUI-F slamming ...
Protecting varsities
09 Dec, 2024

Protecting varsities

THE recent proposal by the Sindh cabinet to shoehorn in non-PhD bureaucrats as vice chancellors has sparked concern...