Mohammad Naseem says his neighbours laughed when he borrowed money and built a concrete bunker under his home in a village near the disputed Kashmir border.

But this week when mortar bombs rained in Salamabad, 38 people -- men, women, and children -- huddled in it as about a dozen shells exploded outside in quick succession.

One of them destroyed Naseem's home.

"Many of us would have died had we not moved into the bunker," Naseem, a 34-year-old hotel chef, told AFP.

"We grabbed our children and rushed inside. It got so packed that after some time we felt suffocated, two of our children became unconscious," he said.

"The children had to be hospitalised after daybreak when the shelling stopped."

Other villagers hid behind rocks and bushes on the mountain slopes. Some watched their homes being reduced to rubble.

Deadly confrontations between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan erupted after New Delhi accused Islamabad of backing an April 22 attack on tourists on the........

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