ISLAMABAD: Pakistani and Indian forces traded fire along the Line of Control on Monday during which a Pakistani woman was critically wounded in Jandrot sector, according to a report on the Radio Pakistan website.

The woman sustained serious bullet wounds as a result of "unprovoked firing" by the Indian Border Security Force (BSF) in Jandrot sector along the LoC, according to a statement by the Inter-Services Public Relations.

An Indian news website quoted an unnamed defence official as saying that the exchange of fire had initiated from the Pakistani side. The website added that 120mm mortal shells were also fired by the Pakistani forces.

Earlier in August, 3 people were killed and at least 22 injured as Indian and Pakistani security forces exchanged fire in across the Working Boundary in Sialkot.

In July, Pakistani officials blamed the BSF for killing four civilians in two separate incidents of cross-border firing in Sialkot's Chaprar sector and Rawalakot's Neza Pir sector.

India moreover accused Pakistan of killing three border guards and one civilian.

Also read: Pakistan moves UNMOGIP over unprovoked Indian firing along LoC

A border ceasefire agreement signed by the neighbours in 2003 has largely held, but both frequently accuse each other of breaching it.

Also read: Indian shelling terrifies civilians; 3 die

Indian soldier, two militants killed in IHK gun battles

An Indian soldier and two suspected militants were killed in India-held Kashmir in two separate gun battles along the de facto border that divides the restive territory between India and Pakistan, police said Sunday.

The two militants died when a group of suspected armed rebels allegedly crossed the border into India and were intercepted by soldiers, triggering a gun battle in Keran, 150 kilometres northwest of India-held Kashmir's main city of Srinagar.

“According to sources in the army two militants were killed early Sunday morning in the gun battle,” Javaid Gillani, the inspector general of police for the region, told AFP.

An Indian army soldier was killed Saturday night in a similar but separate gun battle in the adjacent sector of Tangdhar along the heavily-militarised border, Gillani added.

The latest gun battles follow a recent uptick in cross border exchanges of heavy fire between Indian and Pakistani troops.

Among them was an attack on an Indian Border Security Force convoy last week in which two border guards and a militant were killed. Another militant was captured.

India said the captured militant confessed to be a Pakistani national but Islamabad has rejected the claim.

Kashmir has been divided between the South Asian rivals since they won independence from Britain in 1947. Both claim the disputed territory in its entirety.

Since 1989, several rebel groups have been fighting hundreds of thousands of Indian forces deployed in the region, for independence or a merger of the Himalayan territory with Pakistan.

The fighting has left tens of thousands, mostly civilians, dead.