MUZAFFARABAD, June 13: Two women and a child were killed and 12 other people injured in pre-dawn Indian shelling in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) on Thursday amid efforts by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to cool off tensions between India and Pakistan.

According police sources, the Indian shelling resumed in most of the AJK areas along the Line of Control (LoC) in the wee hours of Thursday and continued in intervals throughout the day.

In the Hajira sector of the Poonch district, Samina, 30, and her 10-year-old son, Saddam, were killed when a shell hit their house in the Darra Sher Khan village.

The shelling left Sima, 21, injured in the Sehra village, while Nasim Jan, 45 and Sharif, 65, were wounded in the Taroti village of the adjoining Abbaspur sector.

Five people, identified as Ilyas, 18, Khalid, 20, Afzal, 33, Nazia, 12, and Shabbir, were injured in the Kahuta village of the Bagh district.

A jeep (AJKC-6976) was destroyed in the shelling that partially damaged a house and the building of the Kahuta Civil Hospital.

Nazakat, 21, and Sharif, 19, were injured in the Digwar village of the Kahuta sector. In the Nakyal sector, Indian shelling began at 9am, killing Tahira, 35, in the village of Karela Majhan, and injuring Yasmin, 18, in the Tarkundi village.

Meanwhile, four houses were damaged and some head of cattle killed in the heavy shelling on the Tatta Pani sector. Another Kashmiri, Muhammad Tariq, was injured in the Samahni sector.