Tuesday, 4 June 2002 |
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Pakistani soldier killed in Punjab gunfire ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI, June 3 (Reuters) - A Pakistani soldier was killed as Indian and Pakistani troops traded heavy mortar, machine gun and small arms fire along their tense border early on Monday, officials on the two sides said. India did not report any casualties but officials in Pakistan said the soldier was killed and two others injured in shelling in the area around Sialkot city in Punjab province. Sialkot is close to Jammu city, the winter capital of Indian-ruled Jammu and Kashmir, where the two sides shelled each other on Sunday. Indian and Pakistani troops have engaged in daily artillery duels since a deadly raid on an Indian army camp in mid-May that India blamed on Pakistan-based militants fighting its rule in Indian Kashmir. The old foes have deployed about a million troops poised for war along the border since a raid on India's parliament in December that New Delhi also blamed on Pakistan-based militants. In Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, Indian troops shelled villages along the 1,010-km (630-mile) Line of Control that divides the armies in the disputed Himalayan Kashmir region, injuring one person, Kotli deputy commissioner Munir Hussain Chaudhry said. An Indian official in New Delhi said Pakistani troops opened fire with mortars and machine guns on Indian positions in two places along the Line of Control. "The firing started early in the morning and lasted for an hour or so and Indian troops retaliated with mortars and heavy machine guns," said the official, who declined to be identified. Pakistan's Urdu-language newspaper Ausaf said Indian troops launched rockets on Saturday at Pakistani positions on the highest battlefield in the world -- the Siachen glacier area of the Himalayas -- killing a Pakistani army officer. |
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