Pakistan downs 'spying' Indian quadcopter

By Aamir Latif

KARACHI, Pakistan (AA) - The Pakistani army announced Sunday that it had shot down another Indian "spy” quadcopter along the disputed Kashmir border, where the two countries’ forces have long been engaged in nearly daily firing.

"Pakistan Army troops shot down an Indian spying quadcopter in the Hot Spring sector along the LoC," the military said in a statement, referring to the Line of Control, a de facto border that splits the picturesque Himalayan valley between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

‪"The quadcopter had intruded 850 meters on Pakistan’s side of the LoC," the statement added.

It was the ninth Indian quadcopter shot down by Pakistani troops this year, according to the military.

Long-fraught relations between the two arch-rivals plummeted further following India's scrapping of the disputed region’s longstanding special status last August.

Kashmir is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full. A small sliver of Kashmir is also held by China.

Since they were partitioned in 1947, the two countries have fought three wars -- in 1948, 1965 and 1971 -- two of them over Kashmir.

Some Kashmiri groups in Jammu and Kashmir have been fighting against Indian rule for independence or unification with neighboring Pakistan.

According to several human rights organizations, thousands of people have reportedly been killed in the conflict in the region since 1989.