A Keighley man's 15-year-old nephew has lost half his leg in a shelling attack on a Kashmir village.

Schoolboy Shakeel Khalil is the third member of Mohammed Israil Choudhry's family to have been injured in the conflict over the disputed territory in two years.

Shakeel had been in the back yard of his home in the village of Tehsil Samahni, in Azad Kashmir (the Pakistani side of the region) last Friday, when his leg took the impact of the shell.

Soldiers performed some first aid on his injury and transported him on a hazardous journey nearly 200 miles across rough terrain to the nearest military hospital.

Mr Choudhry, who lives in Riddlesden and has not seen Shakeel since his last visit to Pakistan in 1997, said civilians injured in the cross border fighting were entitled to free treatment at military hospitals. Unlike in the UK there is no health service, so civilian hospitals are private and many cannot afford to be treated in them.

But resources are also tight at the military hospital.

Mr Choudhry said: "Shakeel won't get an artificial leg, he will just get a stick. There are so many people injured the government can't afford to help them."

By a cruel twist of fate, Shakeel is the third member of the family to be injured in the conflict, in which Pakistan and India have fought over Kashmir since gaining independence in 1947.

In April 2000 another nephew -- Mohammed Arif -- and his daughter, Rizwana, then four years old were injured in a mortar attack at the village of Danna.

Mohammed, who now lives in Keighley, still has some shrapnel in his side. His daughter has recovered from a head injury. But of two neighbours who were there at the time one, a 22-year-old pregnant woman, lost her baby, and her leg injuries have left her permanently disabled.

Mr Choudhry also said that one of his brothers, who went to Pakistan six weeks ago for a funeral, was at Shakeel's home only an hour before Friday's attack.

He added: "We don't want Kashmir to be divided. We want one Kashmir and are not against other religions.

"Kashmiris only want the right to choose their own government."