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India warns Pakistan

October 9, 2014

India has warned Pakistan against further shelling in Kashmir. The defense minister says the country could make such attacks "unaffordable" as the death toll from this week's cross-border violence rose to 17.

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India-Pakistan Kashmir Region
Image: Strdel/AFP/Getty Images

Indian officials have warned Pakistan against persisting with shelling and machine-gun fire across a disputed 200-kilometer (125-mile) stretch of border in the Kashmir region, raising the stakes in the countries' heaviest fighting since a 2003 truce. Indian Defense Minister Arun Jaitley accused Pakistan of instigating the tit-for-tat shelling.

"If Pakistan persists with this adventurism, our forces will make cost of this adventurism unaffordable for it," Jaitley told journalists in New Delhi on Thursday. "Pakistan should stop this unprovoked firing and shelling if it wants peace on the border."

The countries have traded blame for the cross-border strikes, which began Sunday during Eid ul-Adha celebrations in the predominantly Muslim region. Seven civilians have died in India and 10 in Pakistan. Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes, and the fighting has injured dozens of people.

India-Pakistan Kashmir Region
The most recent fighting has left 17 people dead so farImage: UNI

'Responding befittingly'

On Thursday, Jaitley justified India's firing across the line by saying that the country had a "duty to defend its people" and accused Pakistan of trying to "precipitate tension where none exists." Khawaja Asif, Laitley's counterpart in Islamabad, said his country would prove "fully capable of responding befittingly to Indian aggression," but urged caution.

"We do not want the situation on the borders of two nuclear neighbors to escalate into confrontation," Asif said on Thursday.

India, which has about 500,000 troops deployed in its part of the disputed region, called off peace talks last month after Pakistan consulted with separatists in Kashmir. The latest battles could signal that India's new right-wing nationalist government will take a more hard-line approach to Pakistan.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Pakistan needed to show more "seriousness" to resume dialogue between the adversaries. Both countries claim ownership of Kashmir and have divided the scenic Himalayan region between themselves. The two countries have fought two wars and a smaller 1999 conflict over Kashmir, and battles between Indian forces and rebels seeking independence or a merger of the territory with Pakistan have killed tens of thousands more people - mostly civilians - since 1989.

mkg/sb (Reuters, AFP, dpa, AP)