India
Two soldiers of the Indian Army were killed by Pakistani snipers along the Line of Control on Sunday when the rival soldiers targeted a forward post in Rajouri
Srinagar: Two soldiers of the Indian Army were killed on Sunday when Pakistani soldiers fired along the highly militarized de facto frontier that divides the disputed region of Kashmir between India and Pakistan.
The Pakistani soldiers targeted a forward post in Rajouri sector along the Line of Control dividing Kashmir between the two rivals, said Lt. Col. Devender Anand, an Indian Army spokesman. He said a soldier was killed after getting hit by sniper fire.
On Saturday, another Indian soldier was killed when he was hit by a sniper in Sunderbani sector, Anand said. Anand called the two incidents a "blatant violation" of the 2003 cease-fire accord between India and Pakistan.
In a statement late Sunday, India's military said its soldiers "retaliated strongly and effectively."
In the past, each side has accused the other of starting the hostilities along the along the rugged and mountainous Line of Control, as well as a lower-altitude 200-kilometre somewhat defined portion of the boundary separating Indian-controlled Kashmir and the Pakistani province of Punjab.
The fighting has become a predictable cycle of violence as the region convulses with decades-old animosities over Kashmir, where rebel groups demand that the territory be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.
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