Pakistan says one soldier injured in Afghan border firing

Pakistan Army said late Sunday that the Afghan forces fired at the Torkham border crossing, injuring a soldier from the Pakistani side.

An army statement said the Afghan forces started firing after Pakistan was constructing a gate on its own side of the border as a necessity to check unwanted and illegal movement of terrorists through Torkham.

"At about 2120 hrs tonight Afghan Security forces resorted to unprovoked firing on Pakistani side at Torkham Gate," it said.

A Pakistani soldier was injured due to Afghan firing.

The army said Pakistani security forces responded to the Afghan firing effectively.

Torkham is the most frequented crossing point at Pak-Afghan Border and recently even most of the terrorists have been found using this gate for entry, the statement said.

Spokesman for Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province Attaullah Khogyani confirmed the exchange of firing. He did not give more details.

Afghan media quoted a border official, Muhammad Ayub Hussain Khel, as claiming that both sides exchanged firing around 9 p.m.

"The Pakistani forces had first started firing," he said in reported comments.

The firing incident occurred days after Pakistani introduced a new mechanism along the border that requires every Afghan to carry travel documents for entering Pakistan.

Earlier thousands Afghans living near the border would cross into Pakistan without passports and visas.

Pakistan has said the new system is put in place to curb the cross-border movement of the militants who would take advantage of the loose border monitoring system.

(APD)