At least 10 Pakistani soldiers and two Indian civilians were killed Saturday in the restive Indian state of Kashmir, while a dozen people were injured in cross-border firing, an army official told AFP.
Major Sanjay Kapoor said between ten and 12 Pakistani soldiers died in the frontier outpost of Nowshera, in Rumlidhara village, some 150 kilometers (93 miles) northwest of the state winter capital Jammu, in the early Saturday firing.
"Pakistani troops opened indiscriminate fire in the morning," he said. "We fired back and repulsed them but we think between 10 to 12 of their men have died.
"There are no casualties on our side but one soldier is seriously injured," he said.
However Pakistan's Inter Services Public Relations Directorate (ISPR) said in a statement that their troops killed at least five Indian soldiers and injured many others with only three soldiers injured on their side.
Major General P.P.S Bindra told AFP the Pakistani army had collected the bodies of the dead soldiers.
"We have seen Pakistani troops collecting the dead bodies of their men. We have collected the machine guns and semi-automatic weapons used by the Pakistani soldiers during the early morning raid," said Bindra.
"More security troops have been deployed in the Nowshera area to make sure there are no further infiltration bids," he added.
The army said there was heavy cross-border firing in some forward posts in the region following the incident.
Pakistani gunners pounded Indian military posts in northern Kashmir's Uri district, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) north of Kashmir's summer capital Srinagar, killing two people, including a 13-year-old boy.
"Some stray shells hit residential houses killing two people, including a teenage boy. At least a dozen civilians were injured. Four buildings have also been badly damaged by the intense shelling," said Bindra.
"There are reports trickling in of heavy artillery firing in the border districts of Palamwalla and Poonch," said Bindra, adding that civilian townships in these border districts were coming under fire.
Kapoor said that the Pakistani army had fired 800 mortar shells in Palamwalla, 1,600 shells in Nowshera and 450 in Poonch.
"We have retaliated with mortar shelling," said Kapoor.
Pakistan and India are locked in a bitter dispute along their border in the Himalayan state of Kashmir, which is divided between the two countries and claimed by both.
The rival armies, sitting eyeball to eyeball at some places, fought a second Kashmir war in 1965 and came perilously close to another war last year amid a bloody border conflict in the Kargil area of the state.
Indian and Pakistani troops frequently engage in skirmishes and exchange fire along the 760-kilometre (475-mile) Line of Actual Control, the unofficial border in Kashmir, often causing civilian casualties in border villages.
New Delhi accuses Islamabad of sponsoring cross-border terrorism in Kashmir, where a separatist Muslim insurgency has claimed more than 34,000 lives since 1989.
India refuses any third-party mediation while bilateral talks with Pakistan under successive governments have failed to resolve the 53-year-old dispute – JAMMU (AFP)
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