Fourteen residential houses also suffered extensive damages in the Pakistani shelling and firing, an official spokesman said here.

A Defence Ministry spokesman said two teenaged boys, who were out grazing cattle in the forest area of Kanzalwan sector in the frontier district of Kupwara, were seriously wounded in Pakistani firing on Saturday evening.

They were immediately shifted to a hospital where they succumbed to their injuries within a short while after admission, he said.

He said a soldier was wounded when a shell fired by Pakistani troops exploded near a forward post in Keran sector of Kupwara today.

Pakistani troops also targeted the Srinagar-Leh national highway at several points today, but no one was injured. The traffic on the 434-km long arterial roadremained unaffected, the spokesman said.