Increased Indian ceasefire violations indicate their frustration due to failure in Indian-held Kashmir, Inter-Services Public Relations Director General Major General Asif Ghafoor said Wednesday in a tweet.
The ISPR chief said that the ceasefire violations are being and shall always be effectively responded. “Pakistan Army shall take all measures to protect innocent civilians along the Line of Control (LOC) from Indian firing, deliberately targeting them,” he added.
The ISPR chief’s tweet comes after India’s unprovoked firing and shelling at the Line of Control (LoC) on Tuesday martyred two Pakistanis and wounded 19 others, including women and children.
Also on Tuesday night, officials evacuated more than 50 Chinese nationals working near the LoC, authorities said on Wednesday. The Chinese were working on a dam being constructed in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) along the confluence of the Neelam and Jhelum rivers when firing along the LoC pushed authorities to move the workers, according to Akhtar Ayub from the local disaster management authority.
Another local official, Raja Shahid Mahmood, said the decision was made after Indian security forces fired a volley of indiscriminate fire that killed three people including a woman and a child and wounded 31 others during the last 24 hours.
The Foreign Office on Wednesday also summoned Indian Acting Deputy High Commissioner Gaurav Ahluwalia and protested against Indian firing along the border. The spokesperson urged the Indian side to respect the ceasefire agreement and termed the targeting of the civilian population as ‘deplorable and contrary to human dignity, international human rights and humanitarian laws’. “The deliberate targeting of civilian populated areas is indeed deplorable and contrary to human dignity, international human rights and humanitarian laws. The ceasefire violations by India are a threat to regional peace and security and may lead to a strategic miscalculation,” according to a press release issued by the Foreign Office. “The Indian government must respect the 2003 ceasefire arrangement, investigate these and other incidents of ceasefire violations; instruct the Indian forces to respect the ceasefire, in letter and spirit and maintain peace on the LoC and the Working Boundary,” the statement added.
Tensions remain high with arch-rival India after the nuclear-armed neighbours launched tit-for-tat airstrikes in February following a suicide bombing in Indian-held Kashmir. The latest incident comes after US President Donald Trump triggered a political fiasco in India last week by claiming during a meeting with Prime Minister Imran Khan that Narendra Modi had asked him to mediate the Kashmir dispute. India vehemently denied Modi had made any such request, saying the Kashmir issue must be resolved between the two countries.
