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JAMMU, India –– In the first fighting since a cease-fire began five weeks ago, four Indian soldiers and two civilians died Wednesday in clashes on India's border with Pakistan.
Since India declared its cease-fire in Kashmir beginning Nov. 28, the 1972 control line dividing Kashmir between Pakistan and India had been quiet. India has since extended the cease-fire to Jan. 26.
But on Wednesday, two soldiers and two civilians were killed in heavy firing across the cease-fire line at a border post in Arhayee Mandi, 120 miles northwest of Jammu, winter capital of India's Kashmir state, an army spokesman said.
Farther north, Pakistani soldiers raided an Indian border post and killed a soldier on the cease-fire line in the Lam Sector, 50 miles northwest of Jammu, police said.
A spokesman for Al Badr, a Pakistan-based militant group, claimed in a telephone call that its members had carried out the two attacks. The spokesman said the guerrillas killed 25 soldiers in the attacks. The army denied the report.
According to the Border Security Force, Pakistani soldiers also killed an Indian soldier on the international border in the Hiranagar sector, 50 miles south of Jammu.
The Pakistani army denied its soldiers fired at the Indians.
"It's an Indian lie. No firing incident has occurred on the international border or the Line of Control," said Col. Salut Raza.
Kashmir has been divided between Muslim-majority Pakistan and Hindu-dominated India since 1948, but each country claims the province in its entirety. The nations have fought two wars over Kashmir.
India says Pakistan funds, trains
and arms the guerrillas and aids their movement across the mountainous
border into India. Pakistan says it provides only moral support and has
no control over the guerrillas' movement.
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