Indian firing from across LoC kills teenager
MUZAFFARABAD: Pakistan on Thursday condemned ceasefire violations by Indian troops causing death of a teenager and injury to 10 other people, including four minors, in different villages of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).
Officials told Dawn that the casualties occurred in Charhoi and Khuiratta sectors of Kotli district and Samahni sector of Bhimber district in “intense overnight shelling by Indian troops”.
“A mortar shell pierced the concrete roof of one house in Sabzkot village at about 2am, killing one family member and injuring two others while they were asleep,” said Chaudhry Zulqarnain Sarfraz, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) in Kotli district.
Sabzkot village is located in close proximity of the LoC in Charhoi sector in Kotli district.
The deceased was identified as Mohammad Rizwan, 18, and the injured family members were his 14-year-old sibling Mohammad Kamran and 80-year-old grandmother Wilayat Begum. They were rushed to the district headquarters hospital in the neighbouring Mirpur district, the SSP said.
He said that another aged person, Raja Aziz, 75, was injured in Tayin village of Khuiratta sector, also in Kotli district.
Indian troops also hit different villages in Samahni sector of the southernmost Bhimber district, leaving seven people wounded, according to Bhimber deputy commissioner Chaudhry Guftar Hussain.
He identified the victims as Karamatullah, 60, his three-year-old daughter Ujala Karamat, Amaima Noor, 5, in Haripur Samahni village, Abid Banarash, 28, in Tandar Pona village, Musarrat Shaheen, 28, and her two sons, Asad Abbas, 11, and Muntazir Hussain, 6, in Kotli Gujjran village.
Two of them had been hospitalised, he said.
In a tweet earlier in the day, Foreign Office spokesperson M. Nafees Zakaria said India had continued ceasefire violations along the LoC in Tandar, Sabzkot, Khuiratta, Baron, Bagsar and Khanjar sectors.
“We condemn Indian acts of deliberate targeting of civilians,” he said, in the following tweet.
AP adds: Indian police said a 35-year-old woman was killed and her husband was injured when a Pakistani shell hit their home.
Indian army spokesman Lt Col Manish Mehta alleged that the Pakistani army “initiated indiscriminate firing,” and called it an “unprovoked” violation of a 2003 ceasefire accord.
However, Pakistan denied that it initiated the clash and accused Indian soldiers of firing and shelling in at least in five sectors, causing the death of a civilian and injuries to two others.
Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2017