ISLAMABAD: Four people, including two women, were killed on Thursday in an incident of cross-border firing along the Working Boundary (WB), according to a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR). “Indian border security forces resorted to unprovoked firing of mortars targeting civilians along the Working Boundary in village Bini Sulariyan in [the] Charwa Sector,” the ISPR statement said. Pakistan Rangers “befittingly responded on posts targeting [the] civilian population,” the statement added. The heavily militarised Line of Control (LoC) and Working Boundary have witnessed sporadic skirmishes and artillery duels since the alleged Indian ‘surgical strike’ last September, in violation of the 2003 Ceasefire Agreement signed by both countries. Earlier this month, a five-year-old girl was killed in Azad Jammu and Kashmir when an Indian soldier opened fire across the LoC. The orphan was killed when a single bullet by an Indian soldier hit her as she stood in the courtyard of her house in Polas village of Abbaspur sector in the southern Poonch district. Protests were held in the area against the ‘apathy of the state and the government towards the plight of the people living along the LoC’ after the incident. More recently, an elderly man was killed in a cross-border exchange of fire. Published in Daily Times, September 22nd 2017.