India: Pakistan Helping Militants Cross Border

`We have lodged a protest with the Pakistani side,` Lieutenant-Colonel S. D. Goswami, the army spokesman said on Tuesday.

India on Tuesday accused Pakistani forces of providing fire cover for Muslim militants attempting to sneak into its disputed Kashmir region.

A senior army official said the Indian army came under fire from the Pakistani side at about the same time a group of militants fighting Indian rule in Kashmir tried to cross the border into the Indian-controlled side of Kashmir.

Two Indian soldiers were killed trying to foil the infiltration attempt, the army official said.

"We have lodged a protest with the Pakistani side," Lieutenant-Colonel S. D. Goswami, the army spokesman said on Tuesday.

India accuses Pakistan of aiding a violent separatist revolt in Muslim-majority Kashmir, which saw huge anti-India protests recently. The two countries have fought two of their three wars over the disputed Kashmir region that both claim in full but rule only in part.

New Delhi says the Monday incident was the latest in a series of violations of a border ceasefire agreed five years ago with Pakistan.

The ceasefire and a peace process started in 2004 saw violence levels drop in Kashmir and border infiltrations fall but that process has virtually stalled, initially because of political turmoil in Pakistan, and more recently after a string of bombings in India and at the Indian embassy in Kabul.

Amid the violence, India and Pakistan's diplomats met in New Delhi on Monday to finalise terms for opening a border route for bilateral trade.

A joint panel said they were happy to open the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad highway to trade, as part of a series of confidence-building measures.

In a separate incident, soldiers shot dead six militants in gun battles across Kashmir in past 24 hours, police said.