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Two civilians were killed and two wounded when Pakistani and Indian troops traded artillery fire across the military control line that divides disputed Kashmir at the weekend, the two sides said on Sunday.
Pakistani and Indian officials said there had been an intense exchange of fire since Saturday night in the Kargil and Bhimber districts of Kashmir, the region at the heart of their military standoff.
Indian police said one civilian was killed and another wounded by Pakistani shells that landed on the outskirts of Kargil in Indian-ruled Kashmir on Sunday.
Pakistani police said an Indian shell killed a woman and wounded a man on Saturday evening on the Pakistani side near Bhimber, 160 miles to the southeast.
An Indian police official in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-ruled Jammu and Kashmir, said Indian troops had returned Pakistani fire.
A military spokesman in Islamabad accused Indian troops of targeting Pakistani positions and said Pakistani gunners had returned Indian fire.He said there were no Pakistani casualties.
Police in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-ruled Kashmir, said the firing that killed the woman and injured a man in a village in the southern part of Bhimber was unprovoked.
"It started at about 6.30 p.m. on Saturday and continued for about 90 minutes," Bhimber police chief Raja Naseem told Reuters.
(China Daily September 9, 2002)
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