India violated ceasefire 70 times since July: Basit

MUZAFFARABAD/ NEW DELHI:

Pakistan’s High Commissioner in New Delhi Abdul Basit on Sunday said Islamabad is ‘very’ concerned about the recent ceasefire violations by Indian forces along the Line of Control and working boundary.

“There have been 70 ceasefire violations from this [the Indian] side of the working boundary during July and August. We are obviously very concerned about that,” Basit, who was summoned by India’s external affairs ministry earlier in the day, told reporters in New Delhi.

At least three more people, two of them women, were injured in shelling by Indian forces in the Nikial sector of the LoC on Sunday. The injured – identified as Sardar Hanif, his daughter Mariam and a woman Naheed Akhtar – could not be moved to a hospital due to the continuous barrage of heavy arms, sources said. They added that the Pakistan Army retaliated in a befitting manner.

Read: One killed as India violates truce again

With just days left before Pakistan and India’s national security advisers meet, the flare up in cross-border firing incidents is likely to cast a shadow over the talks.

India meanwhile, claims Pakistani forces violated the 2003 ceasefire 32 times in August, an allegation that Pakistan has denied.

New Delhi claims six people, including a woman, were killed in recent firing by Pakistani forces in the Poonch sector.

In an official statement, the ministry said it had “lodged a protest and conveyed India’s anger at unprovoked firing by Pakistani troops since August 8, particularly with regard to the incidents of yesterday and today in Poonch that saw the systematic targeting of our civilian populations and the use of high calibre weapons.”

According to the statement, India raised the issue on several occasions at the director general military operations (DGMO) level. “Assurances were received from Pakistan’s military authorities that the firings would stop and that their troops would be instructed accordingly. But in fact the firings have continued up until today,” it said.

Read: Woman killed by Indian shelling in Kashmir

New Delhi urged Islamabad to “take necessary steps to ensure that the Pakistan military does not undermine peace and tranquility along the LoC and international border,” the statement added.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 17^th, 2015.