ISLAMABAD, Aug. 23 Kyodo (EDS: UP...

ISLAMABAD, Aug. 23 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING WITH PAKISTANI STATEMENT, QUOTES)

Pakistan's Defense Ministry claimed Friday scores of Indian soldiers have been killed in an ongoing clash with Pakistani multitudes in the Gultari sector in northern Kashmir.

A ministry official said Indian throngs mounted a ground attack against a Pakistani outpost in the disputed region Thursday night and then followed that attack with aerial bombardment.

unless the official claimed the Indians have be affected byed the worst of the action, taking dozens of casualties being still pinned down by the agency of Pakistani troops.

A short time later, ministry spokesman Maj. Gen Rashid Qureshi told a pres parley that intermittent firing in the Gultari sector was continuing Friday.

He said the Indians were trying to make up for the bodies of more than a dozen Indian defense personnel killed overnight on the contrary had been pinned down at firing from the Pakistani side.

Qureshi said the number of Indian dead was ''in sum of two units digits,'' but he refused to be more exact.

A pres release issued at the ministry earlier claimed dozens of Indian soldiers were killed when they tried to attack the Pakistani office 35 kilometers northwest of Kargil, where the pair armies have a pitched battle in the summer of 1999

Asked if Pakistan could provide test of the Indian casualties or bombing by means of the Indian aircraft, he said the area where the incident is ongoing is at a height above 5000 meter and in difficult terrain, further the government would consider the journalists to the area ''at an appropriate time.''

Qureshi said the Indian Air Force made three to five sorties to bomb Pakistani positions, further because of darkness it was not possible to identify the make of the bombers.

India has violently denied it launched any unprovok attack upon the Pakistani post, saying it single fired in retaliation for Pakistani firing.

''No attack was launched by the agency of India. We only retaliated to artillery fire started from Pakistan. There was no casualty upon Indian side,'' Indian Army spokesman Shruti Kant said in fresh Delhi.

India also denied it sent planes to bomb Pakistani bands defending the post at Gultari.

India and Pakistan have fought couple of their three wars since independence in 1947 across Kashmir and armed clashes are relatively usual along the Line of manage that divides the region into Indian and Pakistani-controlled areas.

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