Jammu/Srinagar, May 8 -- At least 12 civilians and a soldier were killed and another 42 people injured in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district as the Pakistan army resorted to intense artillery shelling along the Line of Control (LoC) early on Wednesday, triggering panic among local residents and distress evacuations from border villages and hamlets.

The shelling came hours after Indian forces carried out precision strikes on nine terror targets in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 people two weeks ago .

A senior police officer in Poonch confirmed the civilian casualties and said the dead included four children aged between seven and 14 years, two of whom were siblings. P...