Death toll in cross-border Indian firing on civilian bus rises to 10
- By Web Desk -
- Nov 25, 2016
ISLAMABAD: One of the injured in a cross-border fire and shelling which hit a civilian bus in disputed Kashmir last Wednesday succumbed to injuries on Friday, pushing the toll now to 10 in the latest deadly skirmish between Pakistan and India.
Indian shelling across the frontier into Pakistani-controlled Kashmir hit a bus, killing at least nine people, and three Pakistani soldiers were killed in cross-border firing, Pakistani officials said.
Lawat, where the bus was hit, is 100 km (60 miles) north-east of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), in the upper belt of the Neelum Valley that straddles the de facto border dividing Kashmir between the neighbouring countries.
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Indian forces also attacked an ambulance which was carrying victims of the bus attack, a blatant violation of the international humanitarian law.
Pakistan angrily condemned the attack following which the foreign ministry later summoned the Indian Deputy High Commissioner, J.P. Singh, to its foreign ministry in Islamabad to protest the targeting a civilian bus and an ambulance which was rescuing the affectees of the attack on the bus.
Relations between nuclear-armed neighbours Pakistan and India have been strained for several months, while cross-frontier shelling has intensified leading to the deaths of civilians and soldiers stationed along the disputed frontier.