There are at least eight dead, more than 40 injured — all civilians — and India has once again displayed a callous indifference to both the rules of war inasmuch as they exist and assorted ceasefire agreements. This latest deadly round of shelling started after Indian troops were found to be using an excavator close to the Working Boundary in contravention of agreed standard operating procedures. Firing continued by both sides overnight on August 27-28. The Indians were not firing blind, they knew the coordinates of the villages that they were targeting and would be well aware via satellite imagery that there were no military units in the vicinity. They deliberately and with malice aforethought killed and injured innocent men, women and children.
Nothing has been achieved by this artillery engagement. As far as may be determined, Pakistan did not initiate the action and India fired first. There was no territorial gain to be made, no ground invasion to follow the artillery fire, nor was there any intention of such. The aim was solely to terrorise and intimidate, to raise the political temperature at a time when above all else, it needed lowering and to further impede a peace process that must now be considered dead in the water. The Foreign Office has summoned the Indian high commissioner for a dressing down, but it is no more than a diplomatic minuet, symbolic but bereft of real meaning. Army Chief General Raheel Sharif has likewise condemned the shelling and it is going to be for the DGMOs to broker, if they can, a return to relative quiet.
These ceasefire violations have become increasingly frequent and in increasing severity. The casualties in numerical terms are overwhelmingly civilian on both sides. For the first time, General Sharif has linked Indian-sponsored terrorism in parts of Pakistan with what he termed “belligerence” along the Line of Control and the Working Boundary. For 68 years, India and Pakistan have fought bitterly and unremittingly to the detriment of the people of both states. Nobody is winning. Nothing is gained. Everybody loses — and the sooner this madness stops the better for all, Indian and Pakistani alike.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 30th, 2015.
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