URI, Aug 4 (1998): The artillery shells from Pakistan did not miss by much. They landed just 200 yards (metres) away from a group of journalists visiting Uri village on Tuesday, shattering the peace of the Kashmiri valley on the sixth consecutive day of border fire between restive neighbours India and Pakistan. The valley echoed with the boom of artillery fire as Indian troops replied with 40 shells, and local residents retreated deeper into mountain caves. At least 10,000 people from the village of Nambla, just...

MUZAFARRABAD, July 30 (1998): At least 11 people, including a Pakistani soldier, were killed and 20 wounded on Thursday by Indian mortar shelling in the Pakistan-ruled part of the disputed Kashmir region, local officials said. They said Indian troops started unprovoked firing in at least three different areas on the U.N.-monitored line of control that divides Himalayan region of Kashmir between the arch-rivals India and Pakistan. Militiay officials said six people were killed and nine wounded in different villages of...

SRINAGAR, July 30 (1998): At least 14 Indians and 11 Pakistanis died on Thursday when army outposts traded artillery fire across the tense control line dividing the disputed Kashmir region, local officials said. The latest skirmishes occurred as the two neighbours failed to agree at talks in the Sri Lankan capital Colombo on how to resume stalled peace talks. An Indian defence spokesman in Srinagar, summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, said four soldiers died and five were wounded when Pakistani troops opened...

NEW DELHI, Aug 13 (1998): India on Thursday said it stationed troops in Kashmir only because of the activities of arch-rival Pakistan in the disputed Himalayan region. "Security presence (inside Kashmir) is there because of some reasons. These reasons are related to what Pakistan is doing," Foreign Secretary K. Raghunath told Reuters on the sidelines of a meeting to discuss a recent South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Colombo. Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif asked India on Wednesday...

ISLAMABAD, Aug 2 (1998): Pakistan accused India on Sunday of irresponsible acts in Kashmir and vowed a "befitting response" if Indian forces pursued separatist militants into the Pakistan-ruled part of the disputed Himalayan region. "India is indulging in irresponsible behaviour and I fail to see any logic behind this," Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said about recent deadly shelling across a military Line of Control (LOC) in Kashmir. "This is a recurrent pattern on the part of Indians whenever there is a possibility of...

JAMMU, July 28 (1998):Separatist guerrillas gunned down 16 Hindus in two separate incidents in India's restive state of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, police said. They said in the first incident eight Hindus were killed by militants in Shana Thakrie village of Doda district, some 190 km (120 miles) east of the state's winter capital of Jammu. Eight more were killed in another incident five km (three miles) away at Sarnawah village, police said. A curfew was imposed in Doda region's Kishtwar town following the...

SRINAGAR, July 26 (1998):- Two people were killed when Pakistani troops fired artillery shells from across the border in Kashmir, Indian police said on Sunday. Shooting between Indian and Pakistani troops is frequent across the 720-km (435 mile) ceasefire line that divides Kashmir, which is two-thirds controlled by India and one-third by Pakistan. Nearly a dozen militant groups are engaged in the fight for Kashmir's independence or merger with neighbouring Pakistan. "Due to continued Pak (Pakistani) shelling in...

SRINAGAR, July 25 (1998): Unidentified militants shot dead four members of a family in India's restive state of Jammu and Kashmir, police said on Saturday. The militants entered a house in Challa village late on Friday, killed the four and kidnapped another member of the family. Police gave no motive for the attack. Challa village lies in Doda district, 350 km (220 miles), southeast of the state's summer capital, Srinagar. In an another incident late on Friday, paramilitary soldiers killed three separatist...

JAMMU, July 19 (1998): At least 15 people including nine Moslem guerrillas were killed in separate overnight clashes in Kashmir, an Indian army spokesman said here Sunday. He said the militants were shot by soldiers in separate clashes, adding that six of them were cross-border guerrillas from Pakistan who were gunned down in the frontier district of Kupwara on Sunday. Two security troopers also died in a firefight with the anti-Indian guerrillas late Saturday in Kashmir's Poonch district, he said in Jammu, the...