MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Indian shelling across the frontier into Pakistani-controlled Kashmir hit a bus, killing at least nine people, and three Pakistani soldiers were killed in cross-border firing, Pakistani officials said on Wednesday.

India, in a statement, expressed grief at Pakistani civilian casualties but said: “Retaliatory firing by Indian troops has only been carried out targeting locations from where Pakistan has initiated ceasefire violations on Indian posts.”

Describing the bus incident, Pakistani police official Jamil Mir put the number of dead at nine. He told Reuters four bodies were taken to a nearby hospital and five were still trapped in the bus.

Pakistan also said its military killed seven Indian soldiers on Wednesday.

Following the incident, Pakistan said it had summoned the Indian Deputy High Commissioner, J.P. Singh.

Pakistan’s military media wing, ISPR, put the death toll from the bus shelling at seven, adding three Pakistani soldiers were killed “while responding to Indian unprovoked firing.”

ISPR said: “We reserve the right to respond at the place and time of our choosing.”

Lawat, where the bus was hit, is 100 km (60 miles) northeast of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-held Kashmir, in the upper belt of the Neelum Valley that straddles the de facto border dividing Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

An Indian military spokesman said the Pakistani Army initiated “indiscriminate” firing on Wednesday on Indian Army posts in Bhimber Gali, Krishna Ghati and Nawshera sectors.

Relations between nuclear-armed neighbours Pakistan and India have been strained for several months, while cross-frontier shelling has intensified leading to the deaths of civilians and soldiers stationed along the disputed frontier.

Kashmir lies at the heart of the tension. The countries have fought two of their three wars over the region since partition and independence from Britain in 1947. </s> MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistani officials say the death toll from shelling by India of a passenger bus and villages along the dividing line in the disputed region of Kashmir has risen to 11.

Waheed Khan, a local official, says an artillery shell hit the bus in the Neelum Valley on Wednesday, killing nine people.

Police official Waseem Khan says another two died when a mortar shell hit their house in the Nakyal sector of the Pakistani-held part of Kashmir.

Pakistani army says troops are firing back on Indian military positions.

An Indian army spokesman, Col. Nitin Joshi, says India was responding to Pakistan’s violation of a cease-fire.

Tensions in the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is divided between the two nuclear-armed neighbors and claimed by both in its entirety, have escalated recently with deadly exchanges.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

Pakistan says shelling from India has targeted a passenger bus in the disputed region of Kashmir, killing four civilians and wounding seven.

A local official, Waheed Khan, says the civilians were killed when an Indian artillery shell hit the bus in the Neelum Valley on Wednesday.

The Pakistani army says troops are firing back on Indian military positions. There has been no immediate comment from India.

Pakistan and India have been trading fire recently in the Himalayan region, which is divided between the two nuclear-armed neighbors and claimed by both in its entirety.

This week, at least 11 people were killed on both sides.

Tensions have intensified since militants attacked an Indian army base in Kashmir in September. India alleged the militants were supported by Pakistan, charges denied by Islamabad. </s> Officials say 11 people have died after the artillery attack; no word from India.

Pakistan says that in shelling by India, a passenger bus was hit in the disputed region of Kashmir, killing four civilians and wounding seven.

A local official, Waheed Khan, says civilians were killed when an Indian artillery shell hit the bus in the Neelum Valley on Wednesday. In the latest report, Pakistan officials have claimed that the death toll had risen to 11.

The Pakistan Army says troops are firing back on Indian military positions. There has been no immediate comment from India.

In the escalating twnsion btetween the neighbours, at least 11 people were killed on both sides this week.

Tensions intensified since militants attacked an Indian Army base in Kashmir in September. India alleged that the militants were supported by Pakistan, which has been denied by Islamabad. </s> Pakistani doctors at a hospital in Muzaffarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir, treat a villager injured during an attack on Wednesday, Nov. 23, 2016.

MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan — Indian troops fired on a Pakistani passenger bus in Kashmir on Wednesday, killing 10 civilians in one of the deadliest incidents in weeks of violence in the disputed Himalayan region, stoking tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif called the shelling "naked aggression," and the government summoned an Indian diplomat to lodge a protest. The Pakistani army contacted its Indian counterpart over a crisis hotline, saying "we reserve the right to respond at the place and time of our choosing."

The Pakistani military said it had already fired back at Indian positions, killing seven soldiers, but there was no word on casualties from the Indian side. Indian army spokesman Col. Nitin Joshi said an intense exchange of fire was underway.

Kashmir is split between Indian and Pakistani areas of control and claimed in its entirety by both countries. The South Asian rivals fought two of their three wars over Kashmir, and it remains one of the world's most intractable conflicts.

Waheed Khan, a Pakistani police official in the region, said the Indian shelling also hit villages near the Line of Control separating the two sides, killing another two civilians and causing others to flee. At least three Pakistani soldiers were also killed, the military said, adding that Indian troops had fired on an ambulance.

The latest exchange of fire came a day after the mutilated body of an Indian soldier was found in Kashmir. The Indian military did not say whether the soldier was killed by Pakistani soldiers or Kashmiri rebels, who have been fighting against Indian rule since 1989.

"Retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act," Col. Rajesh Kalia, another Indian army spokesman, said after Tuesday's attack.

Tensions have soared in Kashmir since militants attacked an Indian army base there in September, killing at least 17 soldiers. India said the militants were supported by Pakistan, charges denied by Islamabad. The two sides have traded blame for the cross-border fire and have accused each other of violating a 2003 cease-fire in Kashmir.

Last week, the Pakistani army claimed to have shot down a small Indian drone in Kashmir, a day after the navy said it had intercepted Indian submarines entering the country's territorial waters in the Arabian Sea.

Associated Press writers Munir Ahmed in Islamabad, Pakistan, and Aijaz Hussain in Srinagar, India, contributed. </s> Indian troops attacked the bus "with small and big arms" in the town of Lawat, senior police official Jamil Mir told Reuters.

Pakistan's military media wing, ISPR, said in a statement that seven people were killed and seven wounded.

Lawat is 100 km (60 miles) northeast of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani-held Kashmir, in the upper belt of Neelum Valley that straddles the de facto border splitting Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

Indian officials did not comment on the deaths but a military spokesman said the Pakistani Army initiated "indiscriminate" firing on Wednesday morning on Indian Army posts in Bhimber Gali, Krishna Ghati and Nawshera sectors.

Relations between Pakistan and India have been strained for several months, while cross-frontier shelling has intensified leading to deaths of civilians and soldiers stationed along the disputed frontier.

Kashmir lies at the heart of the tension. The countries have fought two of their three wars over the region since partition and independence from Britain in 1947. </s> Neelum Valley police Superintendent Jamil Mir told CNN that the shelling came from the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir and that one child was injured in the attack.

Ten others were injured in the town of Nagdar as the bus traveled to the city of Muzaffarabad.

CNN contacted an Indian defense spokesman in Indian-administered Kashmir, Rajesh Kalia, who declined to comment on the attack.

Indian army spokesman Lt. Col. Manish Mehta said soldiers had been exchanging intense gunfire at Pakistani posts since early Wednesday.

Kalia refused to disclose exactly where the Indian firing has been taking place. The bus attack comes a day after India said three of its soldiers were killed on its side of Kashmir. The army's northern command said Tuesday on Twitter that one of those bodies had been mutilated and vowed "retribution." #JKOps 3 soldiers killed in action on LC in Machhal. Body of one soldier mutilated, retribution will be heavy for this cowardly act @adgpi — NorthernComd.IA (@NorthernComd_IA) 22 November 2016 There has been a steady escalation in tensions over recent months between the neighboring nations -- both of which hold nuclear arms -- with regular accusations of ceasefire violations and losses of life on both sides. Each nation has accused the other of provocation. The two countries have been fighting over Kashmir, a Muslim-majority region, since both gained their independence in 1947. China also claims a part of the region. Pakistan and India have fought two wars over Kashmir -- in 1947 and 1965 -- and they came close to a third in 1999. Last week, Pakistani officials said they had evacuated 8,000 villagers while others fled the violence themselves. More evacuations were planned, they said. In October, India relocated more than 10,000 people from its side as officials accused Pakistani troops of shelling over the border. The recent bout of violence flared in September when armed militants killed 19 Indian soldiers at an army base in Uri, about 63 miles (102 kilometers) from Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian-administered Kashmir. In the aftermath, India launched a "surgical strike" against what it described as a terrorist launching pad across the Line of Control dividing the two sides of the disputed region. Pakistan denied the target was a terrorist base. </s> Family members of a boy, who was killed by Indian shelling, mourn next his casket at a village in Hatian Bala, 40 kilometers from Muzafarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir, Saturday, March 2, 2019. Indian and Pakistani soldiers again targeted each other's posts and villages along their volatile frontier in disputed Kashmir, killing at some civilians and wounding few others, officials said. (AP Photo/M.D. Mughal)

Family members of a boy, who was killed by Indian shelling, mourn next his casket at a village in Hatian Bala, 40 kilometers from Muzafarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir, Saturday, March 2, 2019. Indian and Pakistani soldiers again targeted each other's posts and villages along their volatile frontier in disputed Kashmir, killing at some civilians and wounding few others, officials said. (AP Photo/M.D. Mughal)

SRINAGAR, India (AP) — Indian and Pakistani soldiers have again targeted each other’s posts and villages along their volatile frontier in disputed Kashmir, killing at least six civilians and two Pakistani troops, officials said Saturday.

But in a sign that tensions between the nuclear-armed rivals could soon ease, a Pakistani Cabinet minister said a key train service between Pakistan and neighboring India would resume on Monday.

Tensions have been running high since Indian aircraft crossed into Pakistan this past Tuesday, carrying out what India called a pre-emptive strike against militants blamed for a Feb. 14 suicide bombing in Indian-controlled Kashmir that killed 40 Indian troops. Pakistan retaliated, shooting down a fighter jet Wednesday and detaining its pilot, who was returned to India on Friday in a peace gesture.

Fighting resumed overnight Friday. Pakistan’s military said two of its soldiers were killed in an exchange of fire with Indian forces near the Line of Control that separates Kashmir between the rivals. It marked the first fatalities for Pakistani troops since Wednesday, when tensions dramatically escalated between the nuclear-armed countries over Kashmir, which is split between them but claimed by both in its entirety.

Indian police, meanwhile, said two siblings and their mother were killed in Indian-controlled Kashmir. The three died after a shell fired by Pakistani soldiers hit their home in the Poonch region near the Line of Control. The children’s father was critically wounded.

In Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, government official Umar Azam said Indian troops with heavy weapons “indiscriminately targeted border villagers” along the Line of Control, killing a boy and wounding three other people. He said several homes were destroyed by Indian shelling.

Following a lull lasting a few hours, shelling and firing of small arms resumed Saturday. A Pakistani military statement said two civilians were killed and two others wounded in the fresh fighting. The Indian army said Pakistani troops attacked Indian posts at several places along the militarized line.

Since tensions escalated following last month’s suicide attack, world leaders have scrambled to head off an all-out war between India and Pakistan. The rivals have fought two of their three wars over Kashmir since their independence from British rule in 1947.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said Saturday that Russia had offered to serve as a mediator to ease tensions. He said Pakistan was ready to accept the offer, but he did not know whether India would agree as well.

Qureshi also said a top Saudi diplomat would soon visit Pakistan and India. Pakistani officials said China is expected to send an envoy to Pakistan and India this coming week.

The current violence marks the most serious escalation of the long-simmering conflict since 1999, when Pakistan’s military sent a ground force into Indian-controlled Kashmir. That year also saw an Indian fighter jet shoot down a Pakistani naval aircraft, killing all 16 on board.

The latest wave of tensions began after the militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad claimed responsibility for the Feb. 14 suicide bombing by a Kashmiri militant on Indian paramilitary forces. India has long accused Pakistan of cultivating such militant groups to attack it. Pakistan has denied any involvement in the suicide attack.

Pakistan’s minister for railways, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, told reporters Saturday that the Samjhauta Express train service linking the Pakistani city of Lahore with the Indian border town of Atari would resume on Monday. The service was suspended by Pakistani authorities this past week.

Thousands of people on both sides of Kashmir have fled to government-run temporary shelters or relatives’ homes in safer areas to escape shelling along the frontier, which is marked by razor wire, watch towers and bunkers amid tangled bushes, forests and fields of rice and corn.

“These battles are fought on our bodies, in our homes and fields, and we still don’t have anything in our hands. We are at the mercy of these soldiers,” said Mohammed Akram, a resident in the Mendhar area in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

Sakina, a young woman who fled to a shelter with her two children, said the frequent shelling had made them “homeless in our own land.”

In Pakistani-administered Kashmir, many displaced families urged the international community to help resolve the issue of Kashmir so that they can live peacefully.

“Whenever India fires mortars, it’s we who suffer,” said Mohammad Latif, a laborer who took refuge at a government building that was vacated for sheltering displaced families.

“I don’t care whether the Indian pilot is gone or not, I don’t care who released him and why, but I want to know whether peace will return to us after his return to India,” said Mohammad Sadiq, a shopkeeper who also was among the displaced. He said the latest tensions between Pakistan and India rose so suddenly that some people sold their sheep, cows and buffaloes at throwaway prices in his native Chikothi town.

“We did not know whether we will get any shelter and how could we take our animals” with us, he said.

Meanwhile, Indian police said two paramilitary soldiers and two counterinsurgency police officials were killed in a gunbattle with militants in Indian-controlled Kashmir, while troops fatally shot a civilian during anti-India protests.

Rebel groups have been fighting Indian rule since 1989 and demand that Kashmir be united either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

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Mughal reported from Muzafarabad, Pakistan. Associated Press writer Munir Ahmed in Islamabad contributed to this report. </s> MUZAFFARABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Residents near the disputed boundary in divided Kashmir say it was quiet overnight, the first lull since an escalation between Pakistan and India erupted last week.

Nazakat Hussain in Pakistani-held Kashmir says his and many other families are using the lull Sunday to leave their homes in Chakoti area.

Pakistani government official Moazzam Zafar says some 200 families have already taken shelter in three large government buildings in the territory.

At least eight civilians and two soldiers have been killed in Pakistani-controlled Kashmir since tensions soared following India's airstrike Tuesday inside Pakistan that New Delhi said targeted militants behind a Feb. 14 suicide bombing in Indian-controlled Kashmir that killed 40 troops.

Pakistan retaliated, shooting down a fighter jet Wednesday and detaining its pilot, who was returned to India on Friday.

A Pakistani Kashmiri carries his belonging and walks through a market at his hometown in Chakoti on the violent border that separates the Himalayan region of Kashmir between Pakistan and India, Saturday, March 2, 2019. Indian and Pakistani soldiers again targeted each other's posts and villages along their volatile frontier in disputed Kashmir, killing at some civilians and wounding few others, officials said. b(AP Photo/Roshan Mughal)

Family members of a boy, who was killed by Indian shelling, mourn next his casket at a village in Hatian Bala, 40 kilometers from Muzafarabad, capital of Pakistani Kashmir, Saturday, March 2, 2019. Indian and Pakistani soldiers again targeted each other's posts and villages along their volatile frontier in disputed Kashmir, killing at some civilians and wounding few others, officials said. (AP Photo/M.D. Mughal) </s> SRINAGAR, India — An Indian paramilitary officer says a civilian and a soldier have been killed in firing by Pakistani troops along the volatile frontier in Indian-controlled Kashmir.

The officer said Pakistani soldiers fired mortars and automatic gunfire at several border posts in Jammu region on Friday in an "unprovoked" violation of the cease-fire accord between India and Pakistan in the contested region.

The officer spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to provide information to the media.

A senior officer with India's Border Security Force, Arun Kumar, said border guards have killed 15 Pakistani soldiers in "retaliatory firing and shelling" since last week.

Troops from the two countries have regularly traded fire in recent weeks, causing casualties on both sides.
Pakistani officials say nine civilians have been killed after cross-border Indian shelling hit their passenger bus in Neelam Valley, northeast of Muzaffarabad, while three Pakistani soldiers were killed in other cross-border firing incidents.