Pakistan and India exchanged shots across the disputed Kashmir region during the past couple of days, killing four. The incident came just days after India canceled bilateral talks concerning the border region.

India accused Pakistan of violating a ceasefire established in 2001, according to Reuters. The shots have escalated an already tense situation at the border between the two nuclear-armed nations.

India's Ministry of Defense reports that Pakistan violated the cease-fire 70 times since the inauguration of Prime Minister Narendra Modi though Pakistani military sources tell Reuters that India violated the cease-fire 23 times.

"Pakistani troops violated ceasefire again today and restored to heavy firing targeting 22 Border Security Force (BSF) posts," BSF Inspector General for Jammu frontier Rakesh Sharma told Reuters.

"We gave them befitting reply causing equal casualties on their side," he saidd, adding that two people had been killed and four injured, including a BSF soldier. Two others were killed on the Pakistani side with 11 injured.

The conflict dates back to the separation of the two countries in 1947 and has led to three wars over the region.

According to the Guardian, talks between the two nations looked promising since Pakistan's prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, had been invited to Modi's inauguration. However, India's Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh called off the talks after Pakistani envoys met with Kashmir's separatist rebels before the talks.

Pakistan's high commissioner in New Delhi, the Indian capital, met with Kashmir's Muslim rebel leaders for tea; however, Pakistani delegates have previously met with rebel leaders before talks, the Guardian explained.

Before this incident, Modi had criticized Pakistan for conducting a "proxy war of terrorists." The opposition Congress Party has warned Modi's BJP against using insensitive language, explained Times of India.

"The kind of statements this government is making about Jammu and Kashmir are insensitive in the extreme. They seem to indicate that there is no problem in J&K except a law and order problem. ... But it is not true. There is a very complex, long-drawn, historical problem," former foreign minister Salman Khurshid said.

According to CNN, separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani decried the turn of events and said it was prove that the Indian government did not plan on going through with the talks.