Unsettled by domestic chaos, India heats up LoC

Indian troops violate truce, suffers fatalities in retaliation

KARACHI: India’s provocative posturing continues unabated along the Line of Control (LoC) in Azad Jammu and Kashmir with its border guards violating a truce at will and targeting civilian population.

Ceasefire violations (CFVs) by Indian troops over the past three days have triggered befitting response from Pakistani soldiers sparking off skirmishes and resulting in casualties on both sides, according to the chief military spokesperson.

DG ISPR Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor said that Indian troops have repeatedly violated the 2003 ceasefire agreement between the two countries during the last 36 hours.

“Responding to CFVs in Haji Pir Sector, Pakistan Army troops damaged [an] Indian post killing 3 Indian soldiers, including a Subedar,” he wrote in a tweet. Some Indian soldiers were also wounded in the retaliatory fire.

Indian CFVs along LOC during the last 36 hours. Responding to CFVs, in Haji Pir Sector Pakistan Army troops damaged Indian post killing 3 Indian soldiers including a Subedar, few injured too. In Dewa Sector Naib Subedar Kandero and Sepoy Ehsan of Pak Army embraced Shahadat. pic.twitter.com/yFuBqPgFVv

— DG ISPR (@OfficialDGISPR) December 26, 2019

“In Dewa Sector, Naib Subedar Kandero and Sepoy Ehsan of Pakistan Army embraced Shahadat,” he added.

CFVs by Indian troops have increased in frequency and intensity since the Feb 27 air battle between Pakistani and Indian militaries in which two Indian fighter jets were shot down and the pilot of one downed aircraft was captured – only to be released later as a goodwill gesture.

According to stats, there have been more than 1,267 ceasefire violations by Indian troops so far this year in which at least 47 people – mostly civilians – have been martyred and more than 241 injured.

'60 Indian troops killed by Pak Army in LoC skirmishes since Feb 27'

Tellingly, more than half of the fatalities, 26 to be precise, have been reported in CFVs since August 5 when the Narendra Modi-led Hindu extremist government stripped Occupied Kashmir of its semi-autonomous constitutional status and put the entire disputed region under siege.

The latest skirmishes came two days after army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa travelled to the LoC to meet with troops deployed to forward positions. “Our quest for peace must never be misconstrued as weakness,” he warned India during the visit.

“There will never be a compromise on [Occupied] Kashmir whatever the cost. We are capable and fully prepared to thwart any misadventure/aggression for defence of our motherland,” he added.



Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi condemned the latest CFVs by Indian forces, saying that it was a ruse to divert the world’s attention from widespread protests in Indian against the Citizenship Amendment Act.

The highly discriminatory law has triggered widespread protests in numerous Indian cities in which dozens of people have been killed thus far with no signs of abating.

Protesters say the law will be followed by a national register, which they fear is designed by the Hindu-nationalist government to expel Muslims who do not have sufficient citizenship documentation.

“People have finally rejected the extremist mindset of Narendra Modi,” Qureshi added while warning the international community to take note of the actions of the Modi-led government.

FM Qureshi condemns ceasefire violations

He paid tribute to the martyrs of the Pakistan Army and said, “The entire nation stands by its armed forces. India should not forget.”
Last week, Prime Minister Imran Khan warned the international community that India could stage a “false flag” operation in an attempt to take the spotlight off its domestic chaos triggered by Modi’s highly fascist agenda.

“I have been warning the international community of this for some time and am reiterating again: if India does such an operation to divert attention from its domestic chaos plus whip up war hysteria to mobilise Hindu nationalism, Pakistan will have no option but to give a befitting response,” Imran wrote in a series of tweets.

“Over the last five years of Modi's govt, India has been moving towards Hindu Rashtra with its Hindutva supremacist fascist ideology. Now with the Citizens Amendment Act, all those Indians who want a pluralist India are beginning to protest & it is becoming a mass movement,” he added.