NEW DELHI — Firing intensified Wednesday on the de facto border between India and Pakistan, a day after the Indian Army promised retribution for what it said was the killing of three of its soldiers.

Pakistan said Indian fire had struck a passenger bus in the Neelam Valley on Pakistan’s side of the Line of Control in the disputed Kashmir region, killing seven civilians and wounding seven others. Indian fire also killed three Pakistani soldiers, including a captain, Pakistan said, and it retaliated, killing seven Indian soldiers.

India defended its actions.

“It was a proper fire assault from our side as a retribution of yesterday’s incident,” said Brig. P. S. Gotra of the Indian Army’s northern command, which includes the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir. He denied that any Indian soldiers had been killed in the firing on Wednesday.

“Both countries are firing at each other,” he said.

Exchanges of fire on the Line of Control that divides Kashmir have been unrelenting in recent months, despite a cease-fire agreement that was signed in 2003. Those exchanges were amplified Wednesday, with India launching its assault, and firing took place at more than a dozen locations, Brigadier Gotra said.

“All along the Line of Control, cease-fire violations are going on today,” he said.

Pakistan, in a statement, accused India of initiating the attack to divert scrutiny from problems in Kashmir, the northern region that has been the subject of a long-running dispute between the two countries. Inter-Services Public Relations, the Pakistan Army’s media wing, said India was targeting the civilian population across the Line of Control toward the Pakistan side to distract attention from the atrocities in Indian-held Kashmir by Indian troops.

The prime minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, said in a statement that “continuing naked Indian aggression” had led to the deaths of innocent people.

“India has failed to comprehend the gravity of the situation,” he said.

On Tuesday, the Indian Army said that three of its soldiers had been killed on the border and that one of the bodies had been mutilated. The army promised to retaliate for “this cowardly act.” In past statements, mutilation has referred to beheading; it was the second time in recent weeks that an Indian serviceman’s body had been reported to have been mutilated.

Brigadier Gotra said on Tuesday that it was unclear whether the soldiers had been killed by the Pakistani Army, militants or a combination of the two.

Tensions between India and Pakistan have intensified since September, when militants killed 19 Indian soldiers at an army base in the border area. India said the militants had crossed over from Pakistan, and it announced a few days later that its army had conducted “surgical strikes” on militant bases along the Line of Control. Indians celebrated the response as a powerful assertion of force against Pakistan.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/09/30/world/asia/kashmir-india-pakistan.html


Let's not forget that this two nations are nuclear armed nations.