The international media visited the Line of Control in Chirikot Sector to interact with victims of continued ceasefire violations by India and witness the situation along the LoC.
Members of the media were shown areas in Poonch sector towards Indian-held side from where Indian troops deliberately target the civil population with heavy weapons, mortars and even using cluster ammunition in various sectors in violation of all international conventions. The international media witnessed military posts deployed along the LoC eyeball-to-eyeball. They were shown the India’s surveillance grid and obstacle system along the LoC having a depth of anti-infiltration grid of 3-4 kms from the LoC.
This surveillance system consists of three-tier layered defence. The first tier is close to the LoC at 500-1000 meters and includes mines, surveillance detachments, underground sensors and long-range observation system. The second tier at 1000-2000 meters includes wire obstacles, battlefield radars and anti-infiltration obstacle system. The third tier is on the ridge lines, nullahs, gaps and roads.
Wednesday was the 347th day of continued siege of Indian-held Kashmir by more than 900,000 Indian troops with ratio of one soldier for every eight Kashmiris after the August 5, 2019, illegal actions aimed at changing demographics of the occupied territory.
Since BJP government came in power, there has been an increase in ceasefire violations. Since 2015 till date, 11,815 violations have been committed by Indian troops along the LoC. The innocent people targeted by Indian troops include women and children also.
In occupied Kashmir, the authorities have further intensified the restrictions across the already besieged valley in the wake of spurt in coronavirus related cases and deaths. According to Kashmir Media Service, occupied Kashmir is under strict lockdown since August last year when Narendra Modi-led fascist government in New Delhi repealed the special status of the territory and put it under military siege. The restrictions were intensified in March this year after the outbreak of the coronavirus in the territory. The authorities further tightened the curbs on Wednesday in the name of controlling the spread of coronavirus.
Meanwhile, the All Parties Hurriyat Conference has called for complete strike on Friday, July 24, to send a clear message to India that the people of Jammu and Kashmir reject its illegal occupation of their homeland. An APHC spokesman in a statement issued in Srinagar strongly denounced India’s attempts to change the territorial integrity and demographic composition of occupied Kashmir, provision of domicile certificates to non-locals and construction of more than 200,000 houses to settle them, killing and arrest of youth and other human rights violation by Indian troops in the territory.
He said that on the day, pro-freedom slogans would be raised from mosques and shrines and a complete blackout would be observed from evening to night prayers against the Modi government’s plan of settling non-locals in the territory and granting of domicile certificates to them.
The spokesman strongly reacted to the reports that people across the territory especially living near military camps were being forcibly evicted from their lands and steps were being taken for the construction of around 200,000 houses for RSS goons and non-Kashmiri workers on the grabbed land. He reiterated his strong opposition to such coercive moves, saying that India was following the Israeli policy in occupied Kashmir and was snatching land from the Kashmiri people and settling the armed Hindus brought from India on this land. He, however, made it clear that as long as a single Indian soldier was present in the occupied territory, the Kashmiris would continue their resistance, through thick and thin.
