Indian aggression: Nawaz says targeting of civilians unacceptable

Says Pakistan has exercised maximum restraint

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said that Pakistan cannot tolerate deliberate targeting by Indian forces of innocent civilians, particularly children and women, along the Line of Control (LoC) in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).

“Pakistan has exercised maximum restraint despite the continuing ceasefire violations from the Indian security forces. However, we cannot tolerate deliberate targeting of innocent civilians particularly children and women, ambulances and civilian transport,” Nawaz said on Thursday.

The PM was chairing a meeting called to discuss the recent Indian attack and the eastern neighbour’s continued unprovoked firing along the LoC and the Working Boundary.





According to a statement, the meeting reiterated its condemnation of the bus massacre and reaffirmed its political, diplomatic and moral support to the people of Indian occupied Kashmir (IOK) in their just and legitimate struggle for the right to self-determination in accordance with the UN resolutions.

“The issue of Kashmir is an unfinished agenda of the partition; we will never abandon our Kashmiri brethren in their freedom struggle.”

“The world in general and India in particular should know that Pakistani nation will never abandon their Kashmiri brethren and will continue to support them in their just and UN mandated freedom struggle,” the PM said.

Lodhi raises issue at UN

Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations Maleeha Lodhi raised with senior UN officials the latest round of atrocities by Indian troops which involved targeting a civilian passenger bus and an ambulance in Kashmir, calling it a grave violation of international humanitarian law.

Lodhi said the attack on an ambulance trying to evacuate the injured was particularly an ‘abhorrent act’ that was a breach of the most fundamental legal and humanitarian laws.

Briefing Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson and the Chef de Cabinet of the Secretary General, Edmond Mulet, Lodhi said this situation posed a “grave threat to international peace and security”.

Lodhi told UN officials that escalating tensions on the LoC was a deliberate attempt by India to divert the attention of the international community from the gross human rights violations being committed by the occupation army in the IOK.



The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations was separately asked to mobilise UN Military Observers Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) to effectively monitor the LoC and the Working Boundary as a step to help de-escalate tensions between India and Pakistan.

FO condemnation

Meanwhile, the Foreign Office on Thursday condemned in ‘the strongest possible terms’ the targeting of innocent civilians in a passenger bus and said Indian forces have been violating the ceasefire during previous years to serve some agenda of theirs.

Responding to a question, the FO spokesperson confirmed that in the wake of the latest Indian aggression, Pakistan’s DGMO conveyed to his Indian counterpart that targeting of civilians is not acceptable under any circumstances.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 25^th, 2016.