India accuses Pakistan of cross-border shelling
AFP, WagahIndia accused Pakistani frontier troopers Saturday of firing two rockets across the border near a popular tourist attraction in northern Punjab.
The shells exploded in a village farm in Indian Punjab's border Wagah region late Friday but caused no casualties, Himmat Singh, chief of India's Border Security Force (BSF) in Punjab, told reporters.
"We retaliated with machine-gun fire," Singh said.
The shelling occurred near the Indian border crossing of Wagah which is often thronged with tourists who gather on both sides of the border every day to watch a ceremonial military change of Pakistani and Indian guards at sunset.
Singh said border commanders from both sides would meet soon to discuss the alleged shelling.
The Indian military said it was the first such incident in decades in Wagah.
There was no immediate comment available from Islamabad.
Tensions between the neighbours flared in the wake of the Mumbai attacks last November, which India blamed on Pakistan-based militants and "official agencies" of Pakistan, a charge Islamabad has denied.
Exchanges of heavy fire were routine along the disputed border in divided Kashmir until a 2003 ceasefire agreement between nuclear armed India and Pakistan.
Since the Mumbai attacks there have been sporadic small arm exchanges.
An elected Punjab village councillor accused Pakistani soldiers of trying to intimidate an all female paramilitary contingent which was the first to be deployed at the Wagah border.
"Firing from Pakistan is a vicious attempt to demoralise the village folks as well as newly deployed lady soldiers," Baljit Singh, the councillor, said.
India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars since independence in 1947 over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which is claimed by both nations.
Wheat-bowl Indian Punjab was the location of a fierce land-air battle during the second war between the countries in 1965.
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