Tensions have soared along the volatile frontier between India and Pakistan in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, as India has deployed more troops and ordered thousands of visitors out of the region.
Indian gunfire wounded a woman on Sunday and the ongoing skirmishes spread fear in border villages, Pakistani police said.
The frontier residents on the Pakistani side are either moving out to safer places or have begun construction of new bunkers, with some strengthening existing shelters near their homes.
National Institute of Technology Srinagar (NIT) students carrying their luggage to leave railways station in Jammu, India, Sunday, Aug.4,2019. Source: AAP
Pakistan and India routinely blame each other for initiating border skirmishes, but the latest ones come amid the Indian government's evacuation order of tourists and Hindu pilgrims and a build-up of troops in its part of the region.
In recent days, Hindu-majority India has deployed at least 10,000 troops in Kashmir, with media reports of a further 25,000 ordered to one of the world's most militarised regions.
Authorities imposed an indefinite security lockdown around midnight as government forces laid steel barricades and razor wire on roads and intersections to cut off neighbourhoods in Srinagar, the main city of the region.
Authorities also suspended internet services on mobile phones, a common tactic to prevent anti-India demonstrations from being organised and stop dissemination of news.
Syed Ali Geelani, a top Kashmiri leader who challenges India's sovereignty over the region, issued a statement late Sunday calling on Kashmiris to use "unity and brotherhood" to fight "India's aggression." He appealed to world powers to "take serious note of this grim situation and help us to be rescued from the cruel and barbaric clutches of India.
