For the second time this year the Armies of India and Pakistan are locked in a tit-for- tat killing of each other’s troops across the Line of Control (LoC) that divides the state of Jammu and Kashmir between the two countries.
On Christmas day, Pakistan’s Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR) announced that Indian Army had killed three of its troops. This, from the Indian side, is an act of revenge, for the four men, a Major and three jawans, the Indian Army lost in an ambush by Pakistan’s border action teams (BAT) on December 23. The BAT has special forces trained to fight in jungles, mountains and carry out stealthy attacks
Both India and Pakistan have carried out operations in each other’s territory, leading to fresh tensions. The incidents on December 23 and December 25 are more than the firing from across the LoC when fire is exchanges at regular intervals in breach of the November 2003 ceasefire agreement between the two nations.
On December 23 Pakistani BAT had ambushed troops of the 2 Sikh near Rajouri and killed four. Within 48 hours a team of India Army sneaked across Poonch into Rawalkot to attack a Pakistani post killing three. “ There had to be immediate response lest the morale of the troops goes down,” a serving Indian Army officer said. Publically, successive Indian Army Chief’s have said that troops have a free hand to tackle any cross-LoC firing.
In End-April this year Pakistan had killed and two Indian Troops, including a constable of the Border Security Force (BSF) and mutilated their bodies. Within hours Indian army had destroyed two Pakistani bunkers and killed seven of their soldiers. Both posts have been destroyed and seven Pakistani soldiers were killed in the Indian action.
Ceasefire violations the shifting focus: The focus has shifted from the International border segment in J&K to the LoC. Pakistan has violated ceasefire 881 times on the Line of Control (LoC) and the International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir this year so far causing deaths of 30 people, The Parliament was informed on December 19.
A total of 771 ceasefire violations were reported on the LoC up to December 10 and 110 on the IB till November 30, Minister of State for Home Hansraj Gangaram Ahir had told the Lok Sabha in a written reply. The LoC runs for 749 kms while the IB segment is 221 Kms
A total of 30 people – 12 civilians, 14 Army personnel and four Border Security Force (BSF) personnel – were killed in these ceasefire violations.
Ceasefire violations had risen three-fold along the LoC this year. There were 228 such violations in 2016 and 152 in 2015 and 153 in 2014. The violations on the IB have declined. In 2016 there were 221 incidents. A total of 253 ceasefire violation were reported on the IB in 2015 and 430 in 2014.
The changes after the ‘surgical strikes’
Pakistan has upped the ante since the night of September 28-29, 2016 when the Narendra Modi government launched the Army across the LoC. Atleast 90 security forces personnel have been killed in Jammu and Kashmir, since then, says the data of the South Asia Terrorism Portal.
This year, the number of militants killed in Jammu and Kashmir crossed 200 for the first time in seven years, which is a success.
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