Tensions between the old arch enemies reached boiling point this week when Pakistan and India conducted air strikes against each other. Bunkers worth £45million are now being quickly constructed on the border with Pakistan in Jammu and Kashmir state, hoping to keep them safe near their homes instead of evacuating them due to artillery firing. Many of the civilian population have cleared out their old concrete bunkers, while others are having new ones built in the event of all-out nuclear war as tensions escalate in the wake of a suicide car bombing that killed at least 40 Indian paramilitary police in Indian-controlled Kashmir on February 14.
Indian and Pakistani troops traded fire briefly along the contested border in Poonch, a district in Indian-occupied Kashmir, this morning.
Lieutenant Colonel Devender Anand, a defence ministry spokesman, said: “The Indian army retaliated strongly and effectively.”
The firing, that India claims was initiated by Pakistan and lasted for a little over an hour, was significantly less elevated than the artillery fire exchanged by the two sides on Wednesday.
Pakistan said the firing began overnight and one man was taken to hospital after being hit by shrapnel.
Shaukat Yusufzai, an administration official in the Pakistan-controlled part of Poonch, said: “The firing continued in intervals throughout the night. It was moderate. Even now it’s continuing.”
The escalation comes after India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who faces a general election in a matter of months, told a rally of supporters that India would unite against its enemies.
During his first remarks since the downing of planes on Wednesday, he said: ”The world is observing our collective will. It is necessary that we shouldn’t do anything that allows our enemy to raise a finger at us.”
While, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan called for talks between the two nations.
Pakistan and India have fought three wars since independence from British colonial rule in 1947, two over Kashmir, and went to the brink of a fourth in 2002 after a Pakistani militant attack on India’s parliament.
Pakistan has shut its airspace, forcing commercial airlines to reroute.
While, Thai Airways International announced on Thursday that it had cancelled flights to Pakistan and Europe, which left thousands of passengers stranded in Bangkok.
India’s foreign ministry handed a dossier to Pakistan that it claimed detailed camps of the Paskistan-based militant group that carried out the February 14 attack.
With a general election due in India by May, an upsurge in nationalism from any conflict with Pakistan could become a key factor, potentially favouring Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
B.S. Yeddyurappa, a BJP leader in the southern state of Karnataka, said India’s strike inside Pakistani territory would help the party to win back power in the state – the first such comment from a member of the ruling party.
He said: ”This has brought a pro-Modi wave all through the country.
“The effect of this will be seen in the elections.”