RAWALPINDI – A 12-year-old boy and a woman have died while another woman is wounded in two different areas of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) after India troops resorted to unprovoked shelling from across the restive Line of Control (LoC), the military’s media wing said on Sunday.
The casualties occurred in Maal Gujran and Sehra villages in Khuiratta and Hajira subdivisions of Kotli and Poonch districts, respectively, where Indian troops resorted to shelling from 10 am onwards, according to the Inter Services Public Relations statement.
The injured woman has been identified as 24-year-old Sonia Nadeem, who is daughter-in-law of deceased 45-year-old Nasreen Begum, wife of Chaudhry Wazir Hussain.
Mohammad Shahid, son of Mohammad Shabbir, also lost his life in Maal Gujran village, two kilometres away from the LoC in Anderla Kotehra sector of Khuiratta subdivision.
The grade-III victim and his grandmother were looking after their goats along a small water body close to their house when shrapnel from a mortar shell that fell nearby pierced his back, the DAWN reported citing a local official.
According to a statement by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Pakistan Army troops responded effectively and targeted those posts which initiated fire. Intermittent firing is ongoing, the statement added.
Condemning the shelling, AJK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider said he was greatly saddened by the loss of lives in the area. “Targeting the unarmed and innocent civilians along the LoC reflects the height of cowardliness on the part of the Indian army,” he said.
Raja also called upon the international community to take serious stock of the situation and play its due role in addressing the root cause of tensions between India and Pakistan.
https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/headline/indian-forces-open-fire-along-sialkot-working-boundary-report/
Pakistan and India have been regularly exchanging heavy fire since tensions escalated following an attack on an Indian army convoy in the Pulwama area of India-occupied Kashmir in February this year.
Ceasefire violations are a frequent feature along the LoC and Working Boundary despite the leadership of Pakistan Rangers and India’s Border Security Forces agreeing in November 2017 that the “spirit” of the 2003 Ceasefire Agreement must be revived to protect innocent lives.
Pakistan has repeatedly condemned increasing ceasefire violations by Indian forces due to which several civilians have lost their lives in cross-border skirmishes. Unprovoked firing by Indian forces across the LoC had taken 832 lives, left 3,000 injured and had damaged 3,300 houses in the first half of 2017.
According to officials, the latest casualties have pushed the death toll in ceasefire violations by the Indian Army in the current year to 16, including six females, while the number of injured civilians has gone up to 82, including 33 females.
