India to send protest to Pakistan over Kashmir shooting
Source: Reuters
SRINAGAR, India, Jan 17 (Reuters) - India will lodge a protest with Pakistan after two of its troops were wounded on Wednesday in a shooting incident near the international frontier in Kashmir, a senior security official said. The firing may have violated a truce that has been working well since it came into effect in November 2003 as part of peace moves between the two nuclear-armed rivals. The Border Security Force (BSF) troops, including an officer, were wounded when their patrol took fire after challenging suspected separatist militants trying to sneak into Indian Kashmir from the Pakistani sector, the official said. "The small arms fire came from across the border. We are yet not sure whether it was militant fire or Pakistani troops," K. Srinivasan, a BSF intelligence official, told Reuters by phone. "We are lodging a strong protest with Pakistan." The shooting took place near the Akhnoor sector, 350 km (220 miles) south of Srinagar, Indian Kashmir's main city. Hundreds of people were killed on both sides of the Kashmir frontier before the 2003 truce as the armies of India and Pakistan engaged in daily artillery duels and small arms clashes. Indian officials say militants fighting New Delhi's rule in the Himalayan region continue to sneak across the frontier from Pakistani Kashmir but violence has steadily dropped after the two neighbours launched their formal peace process in 2004. Officials say more than 40,000 people have died in the 17-year revolt by Muslim militants against Indian rule in Kashmir, the cause of two of the three India-Pakistan wars. Human rights groups put the toll as around 60,000 dead or missing. In Srinagar, a strike called by a hardline separatist leader to protest against the planned visit of moderate separatists to Pakistan closed shops and businesses, witnesses said. Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the chairman of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, is set to travel to Pakistan this week. He may meet Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh before leaving for Pakistan. "The scheduled trip to Pakistan is a pleasure trip. The strike is also to make these leaders realise that they are working against the wishes of the people," Syed Ali Shah Geelani, leader of hardline breakaway faction of the Hurriyat, said.
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