Three young girls and a teenage boy were killed and three other people, including a minor girl, were injured as Indian troops shelled villages in Azad Kashmir along the Line of Control (LoC) on Saturday, residents and officials said.

The killings occurred in the Keri sector of Charhoi tehsil in the southern Kotli district, where assistant commissioner Raja Arif Mahmod said, shelling had started at about 9:45am.

“The shelling has been heavy, but intermittent. They (Indians) are hitting the areas randomly,” he told Dawn.com.

“One shell landed on a house in Sabzkot village, killing a teenage boy, his young sister and a cousin,” he said, identifying them as Shehzad, 18, Faiza, 10, Shanza 12 and Areeba, 5.

Shehzad’s siblings Mahmood, 24 and Areeba’s elder sister Iqra, 12, were critically injured and shifted to Combined Military Hospital Mangla.

Officials in the southernmost Bhimber district said the villages in Samahni and Barnala tehsils were also receiving shells from across the Line of Control.

“There was intense shelling since morning to 3pm, leaving one woman injured in Baroh village,” an official from Samahni police station told Dawn.

The woman, identified as Tazeem Bibi, was shifted to district headquarters hospital, Mirpur, the official added.

From 3pm onwards, shelling had started in Barnala tehsil.

“It is indiscriminate but so far we have not received any report about casualties,” an official from Barnala police station told Dawn.

A statement by ISPR said Pakistani troops were “befittingly" responding to India’s “unprovoked" shelling.

Gen Raheel meets war veterans in Sulemanki

Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif on Saturday visited Sulemanki sector on the working boundary and interacted with the troops and war veterans of the sector, the military media wing said.

Gen Raheel acknowledged and appreciated the efforts of Pakistan Army tackling the challenges of national security.

“Pakistan army proudly carries its heritage and tradition of soldiering and chivalry. Taking inspiration from our war heroes and their spirit of sacrifice, Pakistan Army has always measured up to any challenge,” the army chief was quoted as saying by Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR).

“With an unprecedented level of successes in war against terror, we have become the most battle hardened army and are equally ready for conventional war,” he maintained.

Earlier this week, seven Pakistani soldiers were killed during cross-border firing across the LoC.

Following the incident, the Foreign Office summoned Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale to lodge a protest against the killing of soldiers.

The latest incidents of cross-border firing come as tensions simmer between Pakistan and India over the Kashmir issue.

Ties between the South Asian rivals have been tense since an Indian crackdown on dissent in India-held Kashmir following the killing of Burhan Wani, a young separatist leader, in July.