India-Pakistan tensions flare as gunbattles escalate in Kashmir

While Pakistan’s promised release of an Indian pilot has eased the threat of a wider conflict, there has been no letup in the Himalayan region divided between the neighbors since 1947.

Alongside the shelling, which caused widespread damage, Indian forces in Kashmir killed two suspected militants during a night-time clash.

It comes after Indian and Pakistan fighter jets staged tit-for-tat cross-border raids this week, as they wrangled over a bomb attack in Kashmir last month that left 40 Indian paramilitaries dead.

India blamed Pakistan, which denied any role, as it does in an armed uprising in Muslim-majority Kashmir that has left tens of thousands dead since 1989.

Shelling that has been a part of daily life for decades has intensified even as Pakistan said it would free a pilot shot down on its side of the Line of Control that divides Kashmir.

“There is a very high risk of escalation towards localized, but more intense direct Indian-Pakistani military confrontation in Kashmir,” Jane’s Intelligence service said in a study this week.

Heavy mortar and artillery fire sent inhabitants on both sides of the frontier scurrying for bunkers and other cover.

One woman was killed and an Indian soldier wounded during shelling late Thursday and early Friday in the Poonch and Krishna Ghati sectors on the Indian side, according to police.

Indian authorities told villages to turn off lights to avoid becoming a target for Pakistani gunners.

Nowshera, a small town three kilometers (two miles) from the ceasefire line, was plunged into darkness but gunfire and explosions broke the silence through the night.

Kashmir residents had been bracing for the surge in hostilities since a bomber rammed an explosive-laden car into a military convoy at Pulwama, near the main city of Srinagar, killing the paramilitaries. It was the worst militant attack in three decades of violence.

Amid nationwide anger, Indian forces have staged near-daily raids since the attack and two militants were killed in a gun battle at Handwara near the frontier in the early hours of Friday, police said.

The village of about 250 houses has no protective shelters. Some people have built their own, but work on a public shelter was halted last month because of winter rains.

The only school has been closed for a week and most children have been sent away.

(Source: AFP)