Five civilians killed along disputed India-Pakistan border

India and Pakistan exchanged gunfire and mortar bombs along their disputed frontier on Thursday, killing five civilians and injuring more than a dozen, Pakistan said, days after the leaders of the nuclear-armed rivals agreed to high-level talks.

Five Pakistani civilians were killed "due to Indian unprovoked firing", the Pakistani military said in statements on the clashes on the frontier in the disputed Kashmir region. India said a women on its side of the frontier was killed in Pakistani firing the previous day.

Majority-Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan have fought three wars since becoming separate nations in 1947, two of them over Kashmir, which they both claim in full but rule in part. Soldiers along their heavily militarised boundary have regularly traded fire for decades, but clashes became less frequent after a 2003 ceasefire in Kashmir.

Hopes for warmer ties were raised last week when Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif met Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of a summit in Russia and agreed that their national security advisers would hold talks. Modi also agreed to visit Pakistan in 2016.     (Reuters)

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