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Intense Cross Border Fire Underway Between Troops of India and Pakistan

New Delhi (Sputnik): India and Pakistan have blamed each other for violating various ceasefires since February 2019 when the two South Asian rivals were involved in a dogfight, in which India claimed to have shot down a Pakistani F-16.
Sputnik

The Indian Army has claimed that Pakistan has initiated a ceasefire violation with small arms firing and intense shelling with mortars along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

In a separate development, Indian security forces in South Kashmir's Pulwama district say they raided a militant hideout and recovered explosives and ammunition.

Since last week, cross-border fire has increased between the neighbouring countries, resulting in the deaths of security personnel.

In 2019, both India and Pakistan claimed that there were more than 3,000 incidents of cross-border fire between the two countries.

Already existing tensions between the two countries were exacerbated in February 2019 when the Indian Air Force launched an airstrike on a suspected Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terrorist training camp in the Pakistani town of Balakot. Indian warplanes crossed the Line of Control in the disputed region of Kashmir and dropped bombs, followed by a dogfight the next day.

The bombing inside Pakistani territory was a retaliation for a suicide attack on an Indian military convoy in the Pulwama district of Indian-administered Kashmir that left 40 troopers dead on 14 February 2019.

At the time, Islamabad rejected allegations that there were any JeM camps in the area and invited foreign journalists and diplomats to visit the airstrike site.

India and Pakistan have a long-standing dispute over Kashmir. The territory is divided into Indian-and Pakistan-administered regions, but both countries claim the entirety of Jammu and Kashmir as part of their territory. The countries have fought three wars since they attained freedom from British colonial rule in 1947, two over Kashmir and a third over Bangladesh. 

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