ROHINGYAS TO BE DEPORTED, SAYS CENTRE

India protests civilian killings by Pak

The Centre on Tuesday defended its policy decision to deport 40,000 Rohingya Muslims to Myanmar and asked the Supreme Court not to interfere with it. The Centre said deportation would be essentially a core executive function in the realm of policy.

An Army jawan was killed on Tuesday as the Pakistani troops continued to pound the Indian forward posts and civilian areas with mortars in different sectors of Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district.

However, a report said that the Army jawan was killed in a sniper attack from across the de facto border.

Earlier on Monday, two minors were killed and twelve other civilians including women and children were injured in the alleged Pakistani firing and shelling in Poonch’s Dhigwar, Kerni and Shahpur sectors. A report had said that one of the injured 16-year-old Tazeem Akhter also died in hospital later but the authorities have not confirmed it, so far.

In New Delhi, Pakistan’s deputy high commissioner Syed Haider Shahand was summoned to the ministry of external affairs to lodge a protest about the death of children in the unprovoked ceasefire violation by his country’s troops in Poonch.

An MEA statement said that India conveyed to Pakistan that such targeting of civilians was not acceptable and was against humanitarian norms and practices. It added that India also expressed concern at continued unprovoked firing by Pakistan forces across the LoC.