Daily Times

Pakistan recently summoned diplomats from Afghanistan and India after several shooting incidents along two different borders killed four Pakistani soldiers and a civilian woman.

Accusations of firing by both sides across the Pak-Afghan border, and by Pakistani and Indian forces across the Line of Control (LoC) and the Working Boundary are common.

The latest incidents come at time when tensions are soaring between Pakistan and India, and as talks between the United States and the Afghan Taliban have broken down.

Pakistan’s Foreign Office summoned an Afghan diplomat on Saturday to account for what it said was firing into Pakistan by militants in Afghanistan, a spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The militants shot and martyred a Pakistani soldier on patrol in one incident late on Friday. In the second incident, Pakistani forces fencing a section of the border were attacked and three were martyred, the ministry said. Both incidents occurred in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Pakistan underscored in its meeting with the Afghan diplomat that Afghanistan was responsible for securing its side of the border.

Both the countries are battling militant factions along their largely porous border and each accuses the other of harbouring their militant enemies.

Pakistan also summoned an Indian diplomat after it said firing by Indian forces across the LoC killed a 40-year-old woman from a village of Balakot. Tensions between the two countries have flared since August 5 when New Delhi flooded Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) after revoking the region’s special status.