Indian forces fired across the Pakistani border Friday night after mistakenly believing Pakistani troops had fired rockets into India, a Pakistani security force spokesman said. But a senior Indian Border Security Force official said Pakistan had started the clash by firing two rockets into Indian territory. No one was hurt and border force commanders later met to discuss the incident, the Pakistani spokesman said, but it underlined the nuclear-armed rivals' fragile ties. The rare firing on the border at Wagah, between the Pakistani city of Lahore and India's Amritsar, came hours after the two countries agreed that their top diplomats would hold talks before their foreign ministers meet on the margins of the UN General Assembly in New York this month. A spokesman for Pakistan's Rangers, a paramilitary border force, said Indian soldiers had opened fire with rifles after blasts from exploding rockets were heard on the Indian side. Pakistan denied firing the rockets, he said. “When the rockets were fired, they fired on the Pakistani side,” the spokesman, Nadeem Raza, said on Saturday. “It was light firing from their side and we lodged a protest ... it was unprovoked.” But the inspector general of India's Border Security Force, Himmat Singh, said Indian troops had responded to Pakistani fire. “Two rockets had exploded in the open Indian territory, approximately 2 km (a mile) inside Indian territory,” Singh told reporters.“Our troops on the border, they retaliated immediately, very strongly, and fired into Pakistan territory,” he said, adding India had lodged “a very strong protest”. The two sides occasionally exchange fire along an old ceasefire line separating their forces in the disputed Kashmir region but firing on their international border to the south of Kashmir is very rare. “We did not retaliate as it's the international border and the situation could have escalated,” said the Pakistani spokesman.
