Pakistan violates LoC ceasefire yet again, one jawan injured

Pakistan has allegedly violated the ceasefire again, with its troops firing at Indian posts in the Kanachak area of Jammu, that has left one jawan injured.

Zee News reported that Pakistani troops fired heavily on two posts of Border Security Forces at 8.30 am, near the Alfa post in Jammu.

This comes just five days after Pakistani troops entered Indian territory along the Line of Control in the Poonch sector in Jammu and Kashmir late in the night on 5 August and ambushed a patrol killing five Indian soldiers.

On Friday night Pakistan had fired 7,000 rounds of heavy ammunition and mortar shells for seven hours at Indian posts.

“Pakistani troops resorted to unprovoked firing along LoC in Durga Battalion area in Poonch district around 2220 hours late last night”, Zee News quoted Defence spokesman SN Acharya as saying on Saturday.

About the 5 August ambush Defence sources had said the Pakistani soldiers, numbering about 20, intruded into the Indian territory past midnight and ambushed the patrol party at the Sarla post on the Indian side of the LoC.

A Subedar and four jawans of the 21 Bihar Unit were killed in the attack which took place at around 2 am, the sources said.

The attack took place 450 metres from the LoC on the Indian side, they said.

The growing incidents of unprovoked firing from the Pakistani side has caste a shadow on the resumption of the Indo-Pak dialogue process.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif are slated to meet in New York next month on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly session.

However, a group of former senior military and civil services officers on Friday had asked the Government to cancel the proposed talks between the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan in New York next month in view of unabated Pakistan-inspired terrorism against this country.

“At a time when Pakistan is day in and day out using terrorism against us, it would be ill-advised for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to meet with Nawaz Sharif as it would signal that relations between the two countries are in a business-as-usual mode,” they had said at a press conference.

“We, therefore, strongly recommend that we do not rush into a dialogue with Pakistan, and the proposed meeting between the Prime Ministers of the two countries be cancelled,” they said while releasing a joint statement.

The press conference was attended by senior retired officials including former IB Chief Ajit Doval, former Army Chief Gen N C Vij, former ambassador G Parthasarathy and former Deputy NSA Satish Chandra.

With agency inputs