Fri 25 April 2025:
Indian and Pakistani forces have exchanged fire along the Line of Control (LOC) separating the two countries as the UN calls for “maximum restraint” amid warnings of a wider military escalation following the latest deadly attack in Kashmir’s Pahalgam town.
Indian army sources told Al Jazeera on Friday that the Pakistani side initiated the shooting. A government official in Pakistan-administered Kashmir also confirmed to the AFP news agency on Friday that troops exchanged fire, but did not say who started the exchange.
“There was no firing on the civilian population,” Syed Ashfaq Gilani, the Pakistani official, told AFP.
It was unclear which area along the LOC the exchange of fire took place in, but Al Jazeera’s Umar Mehraj, reporting from Indian-administered Kashmir, said two people were also wounded in a separate encounter in Bandipora.
On Tuesday, suspected rebels killed at least 26 people at a resort in Pahalgam.
Indian police has offered a two-million-rupee ($23,500) reward for information leading to the arrest of the three suspects belonging to the group, a UN-designated “terrorist organisation”.
The deadly incident has since prompted a significant diplomatic spat between New Delhi and Islamabad,
Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Asif strongly denied the allegations of Islamabad’s involvement in the attack.
“Accusing Pakistan won’t solve the problem” of the Indian “occupation” in Kashmir, he said.
“The infiltration of some armed groups cannot be possible,” he added, citing that the LOC is heavily guarded.
On Friday, India’s army chief General Upendra Dwivedi is visiting Pahalgam to review the security arrangements in the area.
India‘s Prime Minister Narendra Modi had promised to hunt down the gunmen “to the ends of the Earth”.
Source: Independent Press with agencies
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