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ISLAMABAD, Feb 2 (AFP) - Pakistani troops have killed 114 Indian soldiers in retaliatory fire across the disputed border in Kashmir over the past two months, a senior army officer said.

At least 87 Indian soldiers were killed when Pakistani troops targeted an ordnance depot in Jallas near Poonch town on the Indian side of the divided Himalayan state in mid-December, Brigadier Mumtaz Ahmed Bajwa said.

The attack also destroyed arms and ammunition, the official Associated Press of Pakistan quoted him as saying at a briefing in Chiri Kot, a forward post near the Line of Control (LoC) unofficial border in Kashmir on Friday.

"Due to the attack there were confirmed reports of 87 Indian soldiers killed while scores received injuries," the news agency said.

Bajwa said the attack was in retaliation for "indiscriminate firing" from across the LoC on civilians in mid-December.

He said 27 other Indian soldiers were killed in different incidents during the period, which has seen a dramatic escalation in tensions between the nuclear neighbours following a December 13 terrorist attack on the Indian parliament.

India has demanded Pakistan end "cross-border terrorism" by stopping Islamic militants crossing the LoC to take part in the 13-year-old uprising against Indian rule in Muslim-majority Kashmir.

Some 800,000 troops are massed on both sides of the LoC, the de facto border in Kashmir, which has caused two of the three wars between Pakistan and India since they gained independence in 1947.

Bajwa, who is commander of Rawlakot sector, put the losses on the Pakistani side of the LoC at 11 people killed, including one soldier in the past two months.

Another 29 civilians and 10 soldiers were injured in "unprovoked" Indian firing, he added.

The news agency quoted him as saying the Pakistani troops were "fully prepared and ready to defend the motherland and any misadventure would cost the enemy much beyond its imagination." 

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