India’s risky misadventure

India is desperately trying once again but failing miserably to shoot its way out of a problem of its own making

India, it appears, is desperately trying once again but failing miserably to shoot its way out of a problem of its own making. Therefore, the blatant violation of the Line of Control (LoC) and that of the ceasefire accord of 2003. Thousands of Kashmiris have lost their lives in this almost 70-year long struggle. Any attempts to reconcile failed because India kept refusing to recognise the matter as its problem and resolve it on its own by giving up its wrongful claim over the occupied state. In fact, PM Modi tried to change the demography of the Valley by trying to settle non-Kashmiris and Jammu residents in it. This infuriated the Kashmiri youth who had by now come under the inspiring spell of young Burhanudddin Wani and the ensuing protest which as usual was peaceful in the Intifada turned violent with the cold- blooded killing of Wani and the use of pellet guns by the Indian security forces that blinded by the hundreds. The world reacted with abhorrence to the massive human rights violations in the Valley. But instead of cooling off, India has increased the heat inside the Valley and across the LoC on the pretext of confronting terrorism being allegedly exported by Pakistan. In its desperation it has tried to create a war-like situation by talking of giving up the first N-use option and then sending its submarines to bottle up our ports. It has also sent in a spy drone. Both the efforts were frustrated by Pakistan. India seems to be coming close to having exhausted all its weapons of terror and like in the past would find it impossible to de-escalate the situation without engaging in direct talks with the Kashmiri leadership.

The unprovoked shelling across the Line of Control (LoC) by the Indian troops, almost on daily basis flagrantly violating the 2003 ceasefire agreement has taken a heavy toll of lives, mostly of innocent civilians on the Pakistani side. On Wednesday the Indian shelling targeted a civilian bus and an ambulance adding many more to civilian fatalities. The blatant violation of human rights by the 700,000 strong Indian troops’ trying to quell the uprising in the Indian Held Kashmir that had caught New Delhi by surprise following the brutal killing of youthful Kashmiri leader Burhanuddin Wani had invited world-wide condemnation . It was perhaps to divert the attention of the world from its own criminal acts that the India first blamed Pakistan for the Uri attack and then claimed for the benefit of its people the act of carrying out a surgical strike across the LoC which turned out to be bogus. And now in order to deflect the focus from the fake surgical strike, the Indian government seems to have decided to keep the LoC under continuous fire power regardless of the human cost to the civilians living on the Pakistani side. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had stepped up a drive to isolate Pakistan diplomatically after the Uri army base attack in which 19 Indian soldiers were killed. Interestingly, the Uri attack had occurred days before Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was set to address the United Nations General Assembly regarding Indian human rights violations in held Kashmir. Meanwhile, in a welcome move considering the seriousness of the situation a high-level committee has been formed by the government of Pakistan consisting of senior officials from the ministries of defence, interior and information, the Military Operations Directorate, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Intelligence Bureau (IB), to formulate a doable and sustainable India-Kashmir policy. Another committee, chaired by the information secretary, has also been formed to prepare fact sheets, counter India’s propaganda campaign and design a media strategy to continuously highlight the Kashmiri freedom struggle. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Information Technology has been asked to prepare a comprehensive strategy to highlight the Jammu and Kashmir dispute via social media.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 24^th, 2016.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.