Pakistan accuses India of ‘unprovoked’ border fire

Pakistani forces on Monday accused Indian forces of “unprovoked” border fire, the latest in a series of incidents raising tension between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Relations between the South Asian neighbours have been strained since India suspended a peace process with Pakistan after the Mumbai terror attack.

But easing tension between the two countries that compete for influence in Afghanistan would help Western efforts there, US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke said on Sunday before flying to India.

In the latest incident, Indian forces using automatic weapons opened “unprovoked firing” on Pakistani positions in Sialkot on Sunday night, Rangers spokesman Nadeem Raza said.

Strong retaliation: “Our soldiers strongly retaliated and forced them to stop firing. We have decided to respond forcefully if they resort to firing again,” Nadeem added.

Provoked: But a spokesman for the Indian border guards told Reuters the exchange was provoked by a militant attack.

“A group of terrorists, attempting to infiltrate, fired at Border Security Force (BSF) personnel, our troops fired in retaliation to stop the infiltrators,” Vinod Sharma said.

An Indian police official said the infiltration bid was the 11th in the past 16 days.

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on Jan 20 2010. Filed under Local, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry