SRINAGAR – Tensions soared Wednesday along the volatile frontier betweenIndia and Pakistan in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, as rivalsoldiers shelled dozens of villages and border posts for a sixth straightday.A total of five civilians and a soldier were killed on both sides,officials from the two countries said, in escalating violence in thedisputed region that both countries blame the other for initiating.Indian police said Pakistani soldiers continued targeting dozens of Indianborder posts and villages with mortars and automatic gunfire in the Jammuregion. At least four civilians were killed and 30 others injured on theIndian side, said a top police officer, S.D. Singh.In Pakistan, two security officials said Pakistani and Indian troopsexchanged fire near the country’s Sialkot city in eastern Punjab province.They said the two sides traded fire over the past 48 hours, killing acivilian and a soldier.The officials said several people were also wounded, including three borderguards. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were notauthorized to speak to reporters.As in the past, each country accused the other of initiating the latestborder skirmishes and violating the 2003 ceasefire agreement.Wednesday’s fighting follows days of confrontations that left fourcivilians on each side and an Indian soldier dead.The fighting has sent tens of thousands of villagers fleeing from theirhomes in dozens of affected villages along the border to governmentbuildings converted into temporary shelters or to the houses of friends andrelatives living in safer places.Dozens of schools in villages along the frontier have been closed andauthorities advised residents to stay indoors as shells and bullets raineddown. Some damage to houses was also reported on the Indian side.This year, soldiers from the two nations have engaged in fierce borderskirmishes along the rugged and mountainous Line of Control, as well as alower-altitude 200-kilometer boundary separating Indian-controlled Kashmirand the Pakistani province of Punjab, where the latest fighting occurred.India and Pakistan have a long history of bitter relations over Kashmir,which both claim. They have fought two of their three wars since 1947 overtheir competing claims to the region.The fighting has become a predictable cycle of violence as the regionconvulses with decades-old animosities between India and Pakistan overKashmir, where rebel groups demand that the territory be united eitherunder Pakistani rule or as an independent country.