[FRANCE24] India denounced Pakistain on Wednesday over a firefight in the disputed territory of Kashmire in which two Indian soldiers were killed, but the nuclear-armed rivals both appeared determined to prevent the clash escalating into a full diplomatic crisis.India summoned Pakistain's envoy in New Delhi to lodge a "strong protest", accusing a group of Pak soldiers it said had crossed the heavily militarised Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmire of "barbaric and inhuman" behaviour.
The body of one of the soldiers was found mutilated in a forested area on the side controlled by India, Rajesh K. Kalia, front man for the Indian army's Northern Command, said. However,
facts are stubborn; statistics are more pliable...
he denied Indian media reports that one body had been decapitated and another had its throat slit.
"Regular Pakistain troops crossed the Line of Control ... and engaged the Indian troops who were patrolling the sector," India's Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement after Pakistain's high commissioner to India had been called in.
"Two Indian soldiers were killed in the attack and their bodies subjected to barbaric and inhuman mutilation."
India's foreign minister sought to cool tensions, however, saying that exhaustive efforts to improve relations could be squandered if the situation was not contained.
"I think it is important in the long term that what has happened should not be escalated," Salman Khurshid told a news conference. "We cannot and must not allow the escalation of any unwholesome event like this."
"We have to be careful that forces ... attempting to derail all the good work that's been done towards normalisation (of relations) should not be successful," he added, without elaborating on who such forces might be.