As clashes intensify, UN military observers visit LoC

Pakistan summons Indian diplomat to lodge fresh protest

ISLAMABAD: UN military observers visited the Line of Control (LoC) on Tuesday to observe India’s relentless shelling of civilian population as Pakistan again called a senior Indian diplomat to the foreign ministry to lodge a protest over frequent ceasefire violations by Indian border guards.

A group of United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) visited the LoC near Kotli in Azad Jammu and Kashmir to get first-hand information of Indian high-handedness of targeting civil population.



Earlier in the day, a senior Indian diplomat was summoned to the Foreign Office to lodge a strong protest with him over unabated ceasefire violations by Indian forces along the LoC and Working Boundary.

The diplomatic protest came a day after at least six civilians, including a woman, were killed and eight others wounded in unprovoked Indian firing in Nakyal and Jandrot Sectors of the LoC.

Director General South Asia Dr Mohammad Faisal summoned Indian Deputy High Commissioner J P Singh to convey Pakistan’s strong protest over the killings and ceasefire violations by Indian forces, said a statement issued by the Foreign Office.

Dr Faisal urged New Delhi to respect the 2003 ceasefire understanding and investigate the continued incidents of violations. He also called upon India to stop its troops from targeting villages and civilians and maintain peace on the Working Boundary and LoC. It was the fourth time in 10 days that Indian diplomats had been summoned at the Foreign Office.

According to a tally of the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), Indian forces have committed 178 ceasefire violations at the LoC and Working Boundary so far this year in which 19 civilians have been killed and 80 others injured.

“During this year 19 civilians have embraced shahadat (martyrdom) due to unprovoked Indian firing and 29 have been seriously injured,” the ISPR said. “Eight civilians embraced shahadat at the Working Boundary near Sialkot and Shakargarh and 51 were seriously injured due to Indian unprovoked firing since January 2016.”

Tensions between Pakistan and India have been running high since the Sept 18 attack on an Indian military base in Uri, in the disputed Himalayan region. The attack that left at least 19 Indian soldiers dead prompted New Delhi to conduct what it claimed ‘surgical strikes’ on the Pakistani side of Kashmir against alleged terror ‘launch pads’.



Pakistan rubbished the Indian claim and termed it an attempt to divert the global attention from the current uprising in Kashmir. The valley has been in the grip of violence since the killing of prominent Kashmir leader Burhan Wani in a police encounter on July 8.

In Srinagar, meanwhile, India officials claimed that one more civilian had been killed late Tuesday by Pakistani mortar shelling in the disputed region, taking the toll to eight.

Two children and three adults were killed Tuesday near the city of Jammu in the Samba Sector across the Working Boundary, top civil official Pawan Kotwal told AFP. Two women were also killed in the mountainous Rajouri district along the LoC, Kotwal said in a text message.

Later Tuesday, another senior police official, Danish Rana, confirmed the death of one more man in the shelling.

Twenty-two people were injured in the cross-border firing, the Press Trust of India news agency said, referring to the shelling which began in the early hours of Tuesday. Eight Indian troops have also died in the border skirmishes since September.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 2^nd, 2016.