India, Pakistan trade gunfire as tensions rise over deadly Kashmir attack
Al Jazeera
Pakistan promises to defend sovereignty as India’s Modi pledges to hunt Pahalgam gunmen ‘to the ends of the Earth’.
Indian and Pakistani forces have exchanged fire along the Line of Control (LOC) separating the two countries as the UN calls for “maximum restraint” amid warnings of a wider military escalation following the latest deadly attack in Kashmir’s Pahalgam town.
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since their independence in 1947, with both claiming the territory in full but governing separate portions of it, leading to lingering tensions that have devolved into violence over the years.
Indian army sources told Al Jazeera on Friday that the Pakistani side initiated the shooting. A government official in Pakistan-administered Kashmir also confirmed to the AFP news agency on Friday that troops exchanged fire, but did not say who started the exchange.
“There was no firing on the civilian population,” Syed Ashfaq Gilani, the Pakistani official, told AFP.
It was unclear which area along the LOC the exchange of fire took place in, but Al Jazeera’s Umar Mehraj, reporting from Indian-administered Kashmir, said two people were also wounded in a separate encounter in Bandipora.
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