NEW DELHI -- India and Pakistan exchanged fire across the line dividing the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir on Saturday and Sunday, killing nine civilians and soldiers, according to authorities in both countries.
It was one of the deadliest sequences this year at the Line of Control, the highly militarized frontier where soldiers from the two countries regularly trade small-arms and artillery fire.
The barrage came amid increased tension between the nuclear-armed rivals.
India accuses Pakistan of arming and training anti-India rebels and also helping them by providing gunfire as cover for incursions into the Indian side. Pakistan denies this, saying it offers only moral and diplomatic support to Kashmiris who oppose Indian rule.
Rebels have been fighting Indian rule since 1989. Nearly 70,000 people have been killed in the armed uprising and the ensuing Indian military crackdown.
On Aug. 5, India's Hindu nationalist-led government stripped Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status and imposed a strict crackdown, sending in tens of thousands more troops to the region, which is already one of the highest militarized zones in the world. India has arrested thousands of activists and separatist leaders in the days leading up to and after the revoking of Kashmir's special status.
More than two months later, the region remains under a communications blockade. Authorities have restored landline and some cellphone services, but the internet remains suspended.
Five civilians and one soldier were killed on Pakistan's side of the Line of Control, a spokesman for the Pakistani army said Sunday. Two Indian soldiers and one civilian were also killed, a spokesman for the Indian Defense Ministry said.
India and Pakistan claimed to have killed larger numbers of the other country's soldiers in the incident but such assertions could not be verified independently.
Gen. Bipin Rawat of the Indian Army told reporters that the exchange began when militants attempted to cross into Indian-controlled territory. Pakistan rejected the accusations and said India's firing was "indiscriminate and unprovoked."
Exchanges of fire across the Line of Control have increased in recent years, an ongoing confrontation that some analysts have called a "war by other means."
The two countries reached a cease-fire agreement in 2003, and for several years, relative calm prevailed on the de facto frontier in Kashmir. Since 2014, however, cease-fire violations have jumped.
Last year was the worst in 15 years for such cross-border firings, according to data from the independent Indo-Pak Conflict Monitor. Each side reported 2,000 or more incidents.
Information for this article was contributed by Aijaz Hussain and Zarar Khan of The Associated Press; and by Joanna Slater of The Washington Post.
A Section on 10/21/2019