Loud Thinking October 26, 2013 at 10:06AM

The real truth about the LOC violations…

India too responsible for border truce violations

A TOI report published today.

NEW DELHI: The ongoing cross-border exchange of fire between Indian and Pakistan troops cannot just be blamed on the other side, and would now require a decisive political intervention to honour the 2003 ceasefire agreement.

Several dependable and saner voices in the security establishment have told TOI that the regular violation of ceasefire isn’t a one-sided affair prompted by Pakistan. Nor are most of the firings a cover for infiltration by terrorists.

The ceasefire violations along both the Line of Control (LoC) and the International Border (IB) with Pakistan is snowballing into a worrying trend, with the number of violations scaling up fast into a serious bilateral issue, threatening the ceasefire pact put in place in November, 2003. There have been around 170 verified ceasefire violations until end-September.

Sources said the present bout of violence and exchange of fire can be traced back to the killing of four Pakistanis in Machil sector on July 30. The Army claimed they were infiltrators trying to enter Indian side of Kashmir. They definitely had strayed across to the Indian side of LoC, but more than one official in the establishment has raised questions about veracity of the Army’s claim. Especially, since the quartet were in their 40s and had only a 12 bore shotgun.

Six days later, on August 5, the Pakistani troops attacked an Indian post in Poonch sector and killed five Indian soldiers. The gruesome killing only vitiated the situation along the border, and cross-border firing further scaled up.

While the two sides busy playing their cat-and-mouse game, terrorists sneaked in through areas guarded by the BSF to launch the September 26 attack on an Army unit in Samba, in which 10 people were killed. The terrorists, armed with GPS set and wire cutters, came across the border, sources admit. But this infiltration and the humiliating attack on the Army unit seems to have further expanded the ceasefire violations into the IB manned by BSF.

Along the IB too there are questions marks over the recent killing of a Pakistani civilian, who the BSF claimed was an infiltrator.

The security establishment has failed to firmly deal with any unprovoked firings, or alleged killings of innocents, resulting in local commanders having a free run on the historic ceasefire put in place between the South Asian nations. In the fog of war and local intricacies, the two nuclear nations may be letting one of their biggest confidence building measures slip away.

Several officials involved in the management of Indo-Pak border admit that now it is no more in the hands of local commanders to put an end to the firing. “It has to be a firm political order now. We cannot ignore the local sentiments. We have had casualties, the boys are angry,” says one local commander.

Even as officials admit to the local inabilities in curtailing the repeated ceasefire violations, it is also clear that in a devious way the entire situation is helping the security agencies, including the Army and the BSF, reinforce their positions in J&K.

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