July 21, 2015
News
India, Pakistan exchange gunfire, not sweets on Eid
*Pakistan says Indian forces fired rockets, mortars and machine guns across border * India says Pakistan fired shells in Poonch sector when people were celebrating Eid
Reuters
SRINAGAR: Indian and Pakistani forces traded fire across their disputed frontier over the weekend, when Muslims celebrated the festival of Eid, injuring several civilians and raising tension despite a recent agreement aimed at improving ties.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met PM Nawaz Sharif at a summit in Russia this month and they agreed that their top security officials would hold talks.
The nuclear-armed neighbours also agreed to expedite the trial of people charged in connection with a 2008 attack on the Indian city of Mumbai, which India blamed on Pakistani-based militants. Modi also accepted an invitation from Sharif to visit Pakistan.
But clashes on their disputed northern frontier in recent days have raised doubts about any real thaw.
Eidul Fitr, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramazan, has in the past been an occasion for gestures of reconciliation between the two sides, such as an exchange of festive sweets, in the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir. But not this year.
“The Pakistan army started shelling and firing on forward villages in Poonch sector when the people were busy celebrating Eid ... targeting army posts and civilian areas, creating panic among the civil population,” said Indian defence spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Manish Mehta, referring to an area in the south of Kashmir.
Five civilians on the Indian side were injured and several houses damaged, officials said.
Pakistan said Indian forces had fired small arms, rockets, mortars and heavy machine guns across the border.
Separately, Indian Border Security Force (BSF) Inspector General Rakesh Sharma visited the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir’s Poonch District on July 20.
After visiting the LoC, Sharma said that Pakistan was training militants to infiltrate into Indian land.
Relations between the two countries worsened last week when the two countries exchanged gunfire and mortar bombs along their disputed frontier on July 16.
Pakistan said five civilians were killed and more than a dozen injured in the firing. India said a woman on its side of the frontier was killed in Pakistani firing the previous day.
Since they split 67 years ago, the two nations have fought each other in three wars, two over Kashmir. There has not been a full-blown war since they both tested nuclear weapons in 1998.
Exchanges of sporadic fire are common along the de facto border dividing the region, despite a ceasefire pact signed in 2003. But the extent and intensity of the latest violence and the number of civilian deaths is unusual.
Both claim all of Kashmir’s Himalayan mountains and fertile valleys. Their shared border is among the most heavily militarised in the world and travel between the two nations is kept to a minimum.
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk