Overnight artillery duels across India and Pakistan's disputed Kashmir border claimed another eight lives, police said Thursday, as Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee left on an official US visit.
In the northern Kashmiri district of Uri, one army soldier was killed and two injured when a Pakistani shell scored a direct hit on their forward frontier post.
Another shell landed on a house in the district's Boniyar village, killing three civilians, a police spokesman said, adding that Indian artillery units had returned fire.
The cross-border shelling had intensified in recent days in the run-up to Vajpayee's departure for the United States in the early hours of Thursday morning.
India and Pakistan's long-running territorial dispute over Kashmir is sure to figure prominently on the agenda of Vajpayee's talks with US President Bill Clinton.
There were similar artillery duels overnight Wednesday in the border district of Poonch in southern Kashmir.
Police said two soldiers and two Muslim militants were killed in an encounter between security forces and a group of militants seeking to cross the border under the cover of the artillery barrage.
The shelling has prompted thousands of villagers to flee the border regions to stay with relatives in areas outside the range of the Pakistani guns.
India have fought two wars over Kashmir since independence in 1947.
India accuses Pakistan of arming and training militant groups fighting the decade-long insurgency in Indian Kashmir that has claimed around 34,000 lives.
Islamabad denies the charge but offers open diplomatic and moral support to what it argues is the Kashmiris' just struggle for self-determination -- SRINAGAR, India (AFP)
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