July 27, 2008	Sunday	Rajab 23, 1429

ISLAMABAD, July 26: Pakistani and Indian soldiers traded fire across the Line of Control (LoC) on Saturday, Pakistan’s military said.

Military spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas said the Indian army fired machinegun bursts and mortar bombs at the Pakistani side of the LoC in the Battal sector of Rawalakot district, where troops had a similar exchange of fire on July 10.

“We immediately responded and fired into the area from where the fire was coming. They later stopped firing,” he told Reuters. He said there were no casualties on the Pakistani side.

“We contacted the Indians and lodged a protest and asked for a flag meeting” of the local commanders, he added.

The Indian army denied Pakistan’s claims. Brig Gopala Krishanan Murali, an army spokesman in occupied Kashmir, said the firing had come from the Pakistani side.

“Some rogue elements, possibly infiltrators, fired rocket-propelled guns and quickly disappeared,” Murali claimed. “We didn’t return the fire.”

The armies of the nuclear-armed South Asian neighbours have frequently exchanged fire across the LoC in the past but such skirmishes became very rare after they agreed on a ceasefire in late 2003.

The two countries went to the brink of their fourth war in 2002. The recent exchanges of fire on the LoC came as relations between the two countries have been strained by an attack outside the Indian embassy in Kabul earlier this month.---Reuters