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| When shall Pak guns & mortars fall silent on LoC, IB? | | | Early Times Report
Jammu, Oct 26: It is mysterious as well as intriguing in the sense that various sectors on the 190-km long International Border in Jammu sector have experienced heavy firing and shelling by Pak troops and Rangers during the last one week whereas there have been hardly any major ceasefire violation on the LOC in the Kashmir valley during the same period. In fact it was also in Poonch,Mendhar and Rajouri sectors (all in Jammu)that Pak troops resorted to unprovoked firing and shelling on October 22 and since then there has been no major ceasefire violation on the LOC.
The two sides keep accusing each other for ceasefire violations but the field reports indicate,beyond any doubt,that Pakistani troops were the first to violate ceasefire agreement.And since January this year there have been more than 105 incidents of ceasefire violations in various sectors on the LOC and the IB.
And Pakistan has,in an attempt at passing on India the responsibility of violating the ceasefire agreement,dished out reports indicating loss of Pak soldiers and civilians in the Indian fire.According to a week old report from across the border Islamabad has said that two Pakistani soldiers were killed and three others wounded after exchange of fire at two different places across the border with India in Jammu and Kashmir.The first incident,it claimed,had occurred near Rawalakot in Poonch in which one soldier was killed and another wounded.
While dishing out reports on alleged Indian firing Pakistan has concocted a report in which it said that a Pak army officer was killed and a soldier wounded due to unprovoked Indian shelling at Shakma sector near Skardu in Gigit Baltistan province on the LOC.
With both sides accusing each other of indiscriminately firing across the Line of Control (LoC) and more recently over the International Border in Jammu, it is anybody's guess as to what exactly is going on there and why.
But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh lent full support to India's claim on Thursday, as he accused Pakistan of breaking the 2003 ceasefire pact and blamed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for not reining in his men.
"Even at this late hour," Manmohan Singh advised Nawaz Sharif to ensure Pak troops honoured ceasefire agreement and what was happening on the LoC and international border was not good for the two nations.
Singh gave vent to his dejection and anger over no improvement in the border situation adding "Let me say I am disappointed because in the New York meeting (between them last month) there was a general agreement on both the sides that peace and tranquility should be maintained on the border, LoC as well as IB and it has not happened. It has come to me as a big disappointment."
"We had agreed at that time that if the ceasefire of 2003 has held ground for 10 years, then it could be made to hold later on also. That it has not happened is something which is really a disappointment," Singh has said.
It seems that Pakistan was gradually enacting scenes that were enacted in 1999.Then also the Pak troops pounded Indian border outposts on the IB and targeted some border villages on this side of the IB.This had forced several thousand families of civilians to flee to safer places.
In 1999,as has been the case during the last one month,Pakistani troops had started firing on Indian border posts in some sectors of the LOC and later concentrated on the IB only,And during the last one month Pak troops have resorted to more incidents of ceasefire violations from across the IB than from across the LOC.
When ceasefire violations figured on the LOC in the Kashmir valley these incidents destabilised peace on the border in the valley and caused a number of hardships and difficulties for the border villagers,all of them being muslims.Possibly word has gone across the border conveying to Islamabad anger and dismay over the miserable plight of muslims living in villages on this side of the LOC in the Kashmir valley. And by destabilizing peace on the IB and by targeting civilians villages on this side of the IB Pak forces know that these villages are inhabited mostly by Hindus.Hence the level of ceasefire violations on the IB has gone up and the rate of firing and shelling on the LOC having gone down.
How long will the two armies needle each other ?Developments within next one week will determine the course of events on the border. |
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