21 civilians killed in J&K in four days of India-Pakistan conflict
Five members of Indian armed forces were also killed in action between Wednesday and Saturday.
India and Pakistan reached an agreement to put an end to the skirmishes that escalated on May 7 with the Indian military strikes – codenamed Operation Sindoor – on what it claimed were terrorist camps in response to the Pahalgam terror attack.
The Pakistan Army had retaliated to the strikes by repeatedly shelling Indian villages along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.
The highest number of casualties was reported from the Jammu region of the Union Territory. Fifteen persons died in Poonch district, which came under heavy artillery firing from the Pakistan Army.
Among the dead were Zain Ali and his sister Urwa Fatima. The 14-year-old twins, both students of Class 5, were killed on May 7 when an artillery shell landed outside their home in Poonch town, just as the family was leaving for a safer area. The children's father Rameez Khan was injured in the shelling.
A seven-year-old girl, Maryam Khatoon, was also killed by a shell that day when she was sitting in the compound of her house in Poonch town.
In Mankot village in Poonch district, 32-year-old Balvinder Kaur was killed on Wednesday as the area came under heavy artillery fire. A mother of three children, Kaur's youngest child is just a year and a half old.
A 46-year-old cleric, Qari Muhammad Iqbal, who taught young children at Madrasa Zia-ul-Uloom in Poonch was also killed on May 7. Following his killing, several television channels had identified him as a 'terrorist' who had been 'neutralised' by Indian strikes on Pakistan on May 7.
The cleric's family strongly objected to the allegations. The Poonch Police issued a statement, clarifying that Iqbal, was a 'respected religious figure in the local community and had no affiliation with any terror outfit'.
Two shopkeepers in Poonch were killed by shells on Wednesday. Amreek Singh, 55, the sole breadwinner in his family, ran a small grocery shop. He was killed when he went out to open his shop. He is survived by two daughters and a son. Ranjit Singh, a 48-year-old local shopkeeper, who was outside Amreek Singh's shop at the time, was also killed.
Amarjeet Singh, a 54-year-old retired soldier, was killed after he was hit by splinters of a shell when he was on his way home from a gurdwara on Wednesday morning.
Six others died in Poonch that day, including a 13-year-old child, Vihaan Bhargav.
On Saturday, 56-year-old Rashida Bi was killed when her house was hit by a shell in Kanghra-Galhutta village of Poonch.
The sole civilian casualty reported in the Kashmir valley was from Baramulla district. Nargis Begum, a 47-year-old housewife, was killed in cross-border shelling in Uri area. Begum died while trying to move her 14-year-old daughter, who has a heart condition, to a safer area.
Two residents of Bihar were killed on Saturday when shells hit an industrial area in Rajouri district – two-year-old Aisha Noor and 35-year-old Muhammad Shohib.
The same day, Raj Kumar Thappa, the additional district development commissioner, Rajouri, was killed when a shell hit his official residence.
Non-civilian deaths
On Wednesday, Lance Naik Dinesh Kumar of the Army was killed in Pakistani shelling in Poonch.
Sunil Kumar, 25, a rifleman of J&K Light Infantry, died of wounds suffered during overnight gunfire and shelling in RS Pura sector on Saturday.
Sergeant Surendra Kumar Moga, a 36-year-old medical assistant attached with the Indian Air Force's 36 Wing, was killed in a Pakistani strike in Udhampur on May 10.
The same day, Border Security Force Sub-Inspector Mohammad Imteyaz was killed in the RS Pura sector of Jammu due to shelling.
Pawan Kumar, a resident of Himachal Pradesh and an Army subedar major, was killed in the Krishna Ghari sector of Poonch on May 10.
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