Pakistan violated ceasefire in Rajouri district during which a school van had got hit.
More than 60 students had got trapped inside two schools in Jammu and Kashmir's Nowshera after Pakistani troops violated ceasefire in Rajouri district. The children were asked to stay back after one of the mortar shells hit a school van, the authorities said. They were later evacuated safely.
The district magistrate of Rajouri Dr Shahid Iqbal said the students belonged to a high school and a nearby primary school. The authorities used bullet-proof vehicles to take the children to safety. All the schools near the Line of Control have now been closed.
The Pakistan army violated ceasefire in four sectors of Rajouri and Poonch districts this morning.
"Forty-five to 50 students of the government high school in Sehar in Naushera sector were trapped due to heavy shelling," news agency Press Trust of India quoted Shahid Iqbal Choudhary, a senior police officer, as saying. The school, he said, is located at a height which made the task of evacuation difficult.
Yesterday, a nine-year-old girl and a soldier were killed and three others were injured in Pakistani firing in the Rajouri-Poonch belt. The army said the jawan, Mudasir Ahmad, was hit when mortar shells landed on his bunker at around 7:30 am.
India sent out a strong warning to Pakistan, with a top officer telling his counterpart in Pakistan that the army "reserved the right to retaliate appropriately" to ceasefire violations.