LoC skirmishes: Man killed as India violated ceasefire twice

A man has been killed while five others -- including three women -- were injured when Indian troops resorted to unprovoked firing along the Line of Control, according to an ISPR statement issued on Wednesday.

The victim has been identified as Abdul Rehman, 28, resident of Palani village while the injured included a minor girl, the statement added. They all belong to the Palani village.

Meanwhile, Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria said India had violated the ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) at Karela sector twice.

In his tweets on an official Twitter account, Zakaria said: “These violations were responded by the Pakistan Army in a befitting manner.” These violations started at midnight on October 19 were met by a befitting response from our side, he tweeted.

On Monday, Zakaria had alleged that India has committed more than 90 ceasefire violations in 2016. “During 2016, India violated ceasefire more than 90 times. This must stop,” he tweeted.

The FO spokesperson said India had been the main hurdle to maintaining regional peace, adding that the neighbour kept vitiating the atmosphere through blame games, hostile statements and propaganda in order to malign Pakistan and serve its domestic agenda.

“During the 2014 provincial assembly elections, India violated ceasefire agreement more than 200 times,” Zakaria said.

Zakaria claimed that Pakistan has “never violated the ceasefire agreement”, and that ceasefire violations have always been misreported by Indian media.

He added that almost 90 per cent reports of Indian media, in connection with the Line of Control (LoC), were false. “Almost 90pc news being run by Indian media is misleading, baseless and fake,” the spokesperson said.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 19^th, 2016.