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 | Subject: Pak violates 5-yr truce, heavy firing along LoC  2008-05-15, 10:57 | |
| Pak violates 5-yr truce, heavy firing along LoC
15 May 2008, 0401 hrs IST ,Rajat Pandit,TNN
NEW DELHI: In the first "clear-cut
major violation" of the almost five-year-old ceasefire along the contentious
LoC, Pakistani troops opened heavy machine gunfire and mortar shelling at an
Indian bunker in the Tangdhar sector of north Kashmir on Tuesday
evening.
The "seriousness" of the violation can be gauged from the
fact that PM Manmohan Singh dubbed it "worrisome" and the director-general of
military operations Lt General A S Sekhon lodged a "strong" protest for the
"totally unprovoked firing" with his Pakistani counterpart over the hotline on
Wednesday.
To further press home the point, the Indian sector
commander at Tangdhar held an "urgent" flag meeting with his Pakistani
counterpart at around 6pm to formally complain about the "breach" of ceasefire,
said sources. Pakistan, of course, promptly denied it.
There have
been other instances of cross-border firing since the ceasefire, a
confidence-building measure, came into force along the 198-km International
Border (IB) in J&K, the 778-km Line of Control (LoC) and the 110-km Actual
Ground Position Line (AGPL) in the Siachen-Saltoro Ridge region in November
2003.
"But they were relatively minor or ambiguous in the sense
that they could also be blamed on infiltrating militants. Pakistani authorities,
of course, denied any complicity of its regular troops in these incidents," said
a source.
But on Tuesday evening, in an "irrefutable violation",
Pakistani troops opened fire from their Papa-Bunker Post directly at the Indian
T-Hut bunker, located at around 9,000-feet across the LoC, around 6.15pm. "It
was not a bid to provide covering fire to infiltrating militants. Instead, it
was targeted straight at the Indian bunker. They fired around 50 to 70 rounds of
heavy machine gun and eight to ten 82mm mortar shells," the source
said.
While the machine gun fire hit the Indian bunker, the mortar
shells fell short of it. "Fortunately, there were no casualties. Our troops
exercised restraint and did not retaliate," he said. Coming as it does ahead of
the talks between external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee and his Pakistani
counterpart Shah Mahmood Qureshi on the composite dialogue process in Islamabad
on May 21, it has raised concerns in the Indian security
establishment.
Pakistan army chief general Pervez Kayani,
incidentally, had reaffirmed his force's "commitment to the cause of Kashmir"
while visiting troops in forward areas along the LoC recently. Hizbul Mujahideen
supremo Syed Salahuddin, on his part, vowed to continue the holy war against
India, while deriding the Indo-Pak peace
process.
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