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| India-Pakistan |
| Pakistan 'shoots down spy plane' |
| 2002-06-08 |
| Pakistani officials have said Indian reports of a gunbattle in southern Kashmir are false and serve only to draw attention from the shooting-down of an unmanned Indian spy plane near Lahore. Indian officials said three Indian soldiers were killed in the firefight in the village of Loranmandi in the district of Poonch with suspected cross-border Islamic militants that started late Friday and continued into Saturday afternoon. But Pakistani government spokesman Gen. Rashid Qureshi said the Pakistani army had reported no firefight activity in the Poonch area, and said there had been no intrusions into Indian-held territory. The general said a "normal exchange of fire" was taking place between the two sides, including shelling as deep as 10 km inside the Pakistani side of the Line of Control, the boundary separating the Indian and Pakistani sectors of disputed Kashmir. Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar warned Saturday that the shootdown could "lead to escalation" of the already tense conflict between the two nuclear-capable South Asian neighbors. "In a situation like this, responsible states must exercise utmost care to ensure that no provocations are made which might lead to escalation," he said. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |