Daily Times

A report in Newsweek, an American weekly magazine, has drawn attention to Pakistan’s rebuttal of the recent Indian allegations about what New Delhi called “unprovoked ceasefire violations” by Pakistani army along the Line of Control sector in the disputed Kashmir region.

Quoting a Pakistani official, the report said that Islamabad, in turn, blamed New Delhi for both the incidents.

“The Indian Army resorted to unprovoked fire in Nekrun Sector, targeting military posts and civilians alike across the Line of Control with automatic weapons, rockets and heavy mortars,” the Pakistani official was quoted as saying by Newsweek.

“These unilateral provocations were responded [to] appropriately by [the] Pakistan Army,” the official said.

“Indian Army persistently targets civil population residing on its side of the LoC while they are busy in routine chores,” the official added. “Such unprofessional and unethical acts are confounded by allegations of sponsoring terrorism across LOC.”

Newsweek also carried the Pakistani Foreign Ministry’s statement accusing India of wounding three civilians at the village of Andrala Nar in cross-border shelling against the Hotspring and Jandrot Sectors.

A senior Indian diplomat, it said, was summoned in response to that incident, which the ministry argued was intended to distract from a deteriorating humanitarian and security situation in the Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

The disputed territory has been in an effective state of lockdown since August of last year, when India removed Jammu and Kashmir State’s semi-autonomous status and flooded it with paramilitary forces, it was pointed out.