LoC aggression: Indian shelling on van kills driver, injures 8 children

Pakistan summons senior Indian diplomat to lodge formal protest

MUZAFFARABAD: A man was killed and eight schoolchildren injured when Indian forces on Friday resorted to unprovoked firing and targeted a school van along the Line of Control (LoC) in Nakyal sector of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).

The van belonging to a private school run by the Muslim Hands – a UK-based international aid agency – was on its way to the school with 12 children on board when a mortar shell fired by the Indian forces hit the van near Mohrah area, killing the driver, Asad, on the spot and injuring 8 children.

After the attack, local people rushed to the spot and pulled out the dead and the injured and took them to Nakyal’s Tehsil Headquarters Hospital.

The injured schoolchildren were identified as Aaliya Rubbi, F Zulkarnain, Ahsan Rashid, Rukhsana Yousaf, Shabnam Yousaf, Saddaf Reyaz, Samiur Rehman and Mehrab Babu.

Talking to The Express Tribune via phone, Nakyal’s Assistant Commissioner Zeeshan Khan confirmed that 8 children – aged between six to 15 years – were injured in the attack.

However, he said the children were now in a stable condition. “Compensation cheques will be handed over to the firing victims with in two days,” he added.



Later, Pakistan Army retaliated against the Indian aggression and forced the enemy’s silenced the Indian guns. After the attack, the AJK leaders condemned the attack and termed it a naked aggression.

“By targeting the civilians on the LoC, India wants to divert the world attention from the Indian occupied Kashmir (IOK) where its forces have been killing the innocent civilians since Burhan Wani’s martyrdom,” said the AJK Legislative Assembly Speaker Shah Ghulam Qadir.

Pakistan lodges protest

Later, in the day Pakistan summoned a senior Indian diplomat to lodge a formal protest over Indian forces latest ceasefire violations.

“The Director General (SA & SAARC), Dr Mohammad Faisal, summoned the Indian Deputy High Commissioner, JP Singh and strongly condemned the unprovoked ceasefire violations and targeting of a school van, on 16 December 2016, by the Indian occupation forces on the LoC,” said a statement.

He said deliberate targeting of civilians, villages and civilian transport and a school van was condemnable and contrary to human dignity as well as international human rights and humanitarian laws.

The DG urged the Indian side to respect the 2003 ceasefire understanding, investigate the incident and other incidents of violations, instruct the Indian forces to respect the ceasefire in letter and spirit, stop targeting the villages and civilians and maintain peace on the LoC.

Relations between the two hostile neighbours have been on a downward trajectory since July when Indian forces started a brutal crackdown against Kashmiri protestors after the extra-judicial killing of a popular separatist leader Burhan Wani.

However, the tensions escalated dangerously after September 18 militant attack on an Indian military base in Uri area near the LoC in the Indian occupied Kashmir (IOK). However, this was the first ceasefire violation committed by India since the change of command in the Pakistan Army on November 29.

On November 23, Indian forces had also targeted a passenger van in the AJK’s Neelum Valley and killed 11 people on board while also firing at the ambulance trying to ferry the victims to hostital.

[WITH ADDITIONAL INPUT FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT IN ISLAMABAD]

Published in The Express Tribune, December 17^th, 2016.