JAKARTA - The number of Pakistani civilians killed in a shootout on the Afghan-Pakistan border was eight, after Islamabad accused the Taliban of establishing unapproved checkpoints on the Chaman border, while the Taliban's casualties remained one person.
Six civilians were killed and 17 injured on Sunday on the Pakistani side by Afghan fire, causing Pakistani forces to retaliate, the country's military said in a statement.
Pakistani soldiers accuse the Taliban of using heavy weapons indiscriminately.
The death toll rose on Monday, when two injured, including a 10-year-old boy, died in a hospital in southwestern Pakistan's Quetta City, Wasim Baig hospital official told The National News Dec. 13.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the killing " deserves harsh criticism".
"The Afghan interim government must ensure that such incidents do not happen again," he said in a statement.
Separately, Haji Zahid, spokesman for Governor Kandahar, said the fighting began after Pakistan objected to Afghan forces building new checkpoints.
"They don't want us to build these posts on our border side," he explained, adding that it caused a two-hour firefight.
Chaman is the second largest commercial border point between the two countries after Torkham at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. This is an important source of customs revenue for cash-deficient administration in Afghanistan.
"Such an unfortunate incident is not in accordance with the brotherhood between the two countries," Pakistan's foreign office said, adding Afghan authorities had been told a similar incident should be avoided.
It is known that relations between the Taliban and the Pakistani government have deteriorated in recent months, with the growing suspicion of each other following the escalating violence between Tereek-e-Taliban, the branch of the movement in Pakistan, with Pakistani security forces in difficult northern border areas.
Tereek-e-Taliban has long been accused of using Afghan territory to attack security forces in Pakistan. The Taliban also used the country as a shelter for attacks on Afghanistan for 20 years of foreign occupation.
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