India summoned Pakistan's envoy in New Delhi Sunday to protest against the weekend killing of at least half a dozen civilians in border firings, hiking tensions ahead of talks between the rivals. Six civilians died on the weekend in troubled Indian held Kashmir after firing and shelling by Pakistani troops from across the border, according to Indian police.
Another two civilians were killed in shelling by Indian soldiers into the Pakistani side, according to a Pakistani official on Saturday.
"We are concerned about the cease-fire violations in the months of July and August," Pakistan High Commissioner Abdul Basit told reporters outside the foreign ministry office in Delhi.
"There have been close to 70 cease-fire violations from this side of the LoC (Line of Control) and working boundary," he said.
Top security officials of the two countries are scheduled to meet in the Indian capital from August 23 in what Pakistan last week described as "ice breaking" talks. After months of stalemate and recriminations, India Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his counterpart Nawaz Sharif spoke for nearly an hour while visiting Russia in July. Kashmir has been divided between the two countries since the end of British rule but is claimed in full by both. Firing resumed along their frontier on Sunday in India's Poonch sector, 320 kilometres (200 miles) south of the region's main city of occupied Srinagar, said Indian defence ministry spokesman Manish Mehta.
Three civilians including a woman had died overnight on Saturday in hospitals from injuries sustained in firing, said Danesh Rana, inspector-general of police for the region.
Three others were killed late Saturday when a mortar bomb fired from the Pakistani side hit their car in the Balakote area of the sector, Indian officials have said. "The number of dead civilians is now six," Rana told AFP.
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