Indian volunteers and officials carry a two and a half year-old child Pari into The Government Medical College Hospital in Jammu on November 1, 2016, after he was injured in cross-border shelling in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir. Indian authori
Srinagar, India: India said one more civilian had been killed late Tuesday by Pakistani mortar shelling in the disputed Kashmir region, taking the toll to eight, as tensions soar between the nuclear-armed rivals.
Pakistan for its part said six of its citizens had been killed by Indian gunfire on Monday and summoned a senior Indian diplomat to protest what it termed an unprovoked ceasefire violation.
India and Pakistan's armies have regularly exchanged fire across the LoC as well as along their undisputed part of the border since a militant attack on an Indian army base on September 18 that left 19 soldiers dead.
Both countries accuse each other of violating the ceasefire and engaging in "unprovoked firing".
In India, two children and three adults were killed Tuesday near the city of Jammu in the Samba sector across the border with Pakistan's Punjab province, a top civil official, Pawan Kotwal, told AFP.
Two women were also killed in the mountainous Rajouri district along the line of control (LoC), the de facto border in the disputed territory, Kotwal said in a text message.
Later Tuesday, another senior police official, Danish Rana, confirmed the death of one more man in the shelling.
Twenty-two people were injured in the cross-border firing, the Press Trust of India news agency said, referring to the shelling which began in the early hours of Tuesday.
Local media reports said Indian security forces killed two Pakistani soldiers and "destroyed" 14 of their posts in retaliation after the latest cross-border firing.
Eight Indian troops have also died in the border skirmishes since September.
Relations between the two countries have plummeted in recent months since the attack on the Indian army base, the deadliest in more than a decade. India has blamed Pakistan-based militants for the attack.
India said it responded by carrying out strikes across the heavily-militarised border, although Islamabad denies these took place.
Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the end of British rule in 1947. Both claim the territory in full.
Several rebel groups have fought for decades an estimated 500,000 Indian soldiers deployed in the Himalayan territory, demanding independence for the region or its merger with Pakistan.
