An elderly woman and a youth embraced martyrdom while three others sustained injuries due to unprovoked firing by Indian security forces in Nikyal and Rakhchikri sectors along the Line of Control (LOC), targeting civilian population. “Sixty-year-old Salamat Bibi and 13-year-old Zeeshan Ayub embraced martyrdom while three citizens including two women got injured,” a press release by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Sunday stated. The injured were evacuated to a nearby hospital for medical relief. “Fire being responded by Pakistani troops,” the ISPR said. The shelling started at about 3pm and was indiscriminate in the beginning, said Kotli Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Raja Akmal. Later, its intensity reduced and by 6:30pm it stopped, he added. Residents said at least two houses in Daryari Palani village were hit by the shelling, as a result of which Salamat Bibi and Razia Bibi were injured in one house and Zeeshan Ayub in the other. “My mother had just gone to the next door house of Muhammad Wasim when suddenly Indian troops resorted to shelling,” Salamat Bibi’s son Chaudhry Khurshid said. “Suddenly, a shell landed on Wasim’s house injuring his wife Razia Bibi as well as my mother,” he added. All three were brought to the ill-equipped THQ hospital where the doctors pronounced Salamat Bibi ‘dead on arrival’. Razia Bibi and Zeeshan were referred to the District Headquarters Hospital in Kotli after initial treatment but Zeeshan succumbed to his wounds after a short journey. The distance between Nakyal and Kotli is around 37 kilometres but residents say it takes them more than one and a half hours to shift their injured from the THQ Hospital in Nakyal to the DHQ Hospital in Kotli due to the poor condition of the road. “Zeeshan was brought dead to the (DHQ) hospital.” In a statement, AJK Prime Minister Raja Farooq Haider condemned Indian shelling at the civilian populations and expressed sorrow and grief over the loss of two innocent lives. Offering condolences to the bereaved families, he said their sacrifices would not go in vain. “The way Indian Army is targeting the non-combatant Kashmiri population on both sides of the divide shames the cruelest mercenaries of modern history,” Haider said.