UNITED STATES (VOP TODAY NEWS) – Indian troops fired on a helicopter near the disputed border in a work likely to increase tensions between the two countries, the leader of Pakistan’s Kashmir said on Sunday.
Faruk Haidar Khan, prime minister of the Pakistani-controlled Azad Kashmir region, said his civilian helicopter was shot by the Indian army as it flew over the Line of Control dividing Kashmir between Pakistan and India.
“The Indian army fired to show that Pakistan violated its airspace,” Khan’s office said in a statement. “When the shooting took place, we were inside our airspace.”
A Pakistani helicopter violated Indian airspace along the Line of Control in the Poonch area of Indian Kashmir on Sunday afternoon (0630 GMT), military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Devender Anand said.
He said it was dealt with “with light weapons.”
Relations between India and Pakistan have seen some improvement over the past months as violence and bombardment on both sides of the Line of Control have declined.
“We do not want any war hysteria in this region,” Khan said.
