India accuses Pakistan of launching additional drone and artillery operations.

India said Friday it had repulsed a wave of Pakistani drone and artillery attacks overnight, and Islamabad insisted it had not struck targets across the border, as the latest conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours showed no signs of relenting.

There were also reports of Indian and Pakistani soldiers exchanging heavy volleys of shells and gunfire across their frontier in Kashmir overnight, killing at least five civilians.

“We’re used to hearing exchange of fire between Pakistan and India at the Line of Control, but last night was different,” said Mohammad Shakil, who lives near the frontier in Chakothi sector.

In India, a woman was killed and two other civilians were injured in Uri sector, police said.

Dozens dead in three days
At least 50 people have been killed on both sides, mainly in Pakistan, since India launched air strikes on Wednesday targeting “terrorist camps” and sparking the worst clashes in decades.

New Delhi blames Islamabad for backing an April 22 attack near Pahalgam, a tourist town on the Indian-run side of disputed Kashmir which killed 26 people, almost all of them travellers and Hindu men.

Pakistan denies the claim.

The countries have fought two of their three full-scale wars over Kashmir, a disputed territory that both claim in full but have administered separate portions of since 1947 when the sub-continent was divided into two nations after British colonial rule ended.

“Pakistan Armed Forces launched multiple attacks using drones and other munitions along entire Western border on the intervening night of 08 and 09 May,” the Indian army said in a statement on Friday.

“The drone attacks were effectively repulsed and befitting reply was given,” it said.

Islamabad denied launching drone attacks after India on Thursday said Pakistani forces targeted three military stations – two in Kashmir and one in the neighbouring state of Punjab.

“Pakistan has not targeted any locations in Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu & Kashmir, or across international border, so far,” Pakistan’s Information Minister Ataullah Tarar said late Thursday.

In Indian-administered Kashmir, a police official said one woman died after heavy overnight shelling in Uri, some 100 kilometres from the state capital Srinagar, and two men were wounded.

Source: France 24