Official: India violating LoC ceasefire
FOREIGN OFFICE SUMMONS DIPLOMAT TO CONDEMN UNPROVOKED FIRING IN LIPA, BATTAL SECTORS
Pakistan yesterday lodged a strong protest with India, the third in as many days, over the alleged ceasefire violations by Indian troops along the Line of Control (LoC).
The Foreign Office (FO) summoned Indian Deputy High Commissioner Gaurav Ahluwalia and condemned the unprovoked firing in the Lipa and Battal sectors, in which one security personnel and two civilians were killed.
FO spokesperson Mohammad Faisal urged the Indian side to instruct its forces to respect the ceasefire, in letter and spirit and maintain peace on the Line of Control and the Working Boundary.
He said the Indian side should permit UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) to play its mandated role as per the UN Security Council resolutions.
India maintains that UNMOGIP has outlived its utility and is irrelevant after the Simla Agreement and the consequent establishment of the LoC.
According to a statement, the Indian forces have continuously violated the 2003 ceasefire arrangement — targeting innocent civilians.
“The ceasefire violations by India are a threat to regional peace and security and may lead to a strategic miscalculation,” the spokesperson added.
Pakistan’s military claimed yesterday that its another soldier was killed by Indian troops in Buttal town, taking the death toll of those killed in the firing to six. Pakistan summoned Ahluwalia on Wednesday and Thursday to lodge protest against alleged ceasefire violations by Indian troops.
FASCIST TACTICS WILL FAIL — IMRAN KHAN
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Imran Khan yesterday said that the Indian government’s “fascist tactics” in Kashmir will “fail miserably” to smother the Kashmiri freedom struggle.
In a series of tweets, he warned the Indian government that “no force can stop” a nation from achieving its goals when unity is achieved in a freedom struggle and death is not feared.
Tensions have escalated between the two neighbours following India’s decision to revoke Article 370 of its Constitution which granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir.
“The fascist, Hindu supremacist (Narendra) Modi government should know that while armies, militants and terrorists can be defeated by superior forces; history tells us that
when a nation unites in a freedom struggle and does not fear death, no force can stop it from achieving its goal.
“That is why the Hindutva exclusivist creed of the Modiled government with its fascist tactics in Indian-administered Kashmir will fail miserably in its attempt to smother the Kashmiri liberation struggle,” he added.
President Dr Arif Alvi said Modi was taking inspiration from Hitler and urged upon the world to take notice of the promotion of Nazi ideology.
The president in a tweet shared an article titled ‘In Modi’s Gujarat, Hitler is a textbook hero’ which was published in Times of India back in 2004 when the incumbent Indian prime minister was the chief minister of Gujarat.
Harit Mehta, writer of the article described the political alignment of Modi based on Nazism. “Welcome to high school education in Narendra Modi’s Gujarat, where authors of social studies text books published by Gujarat State Board of School Textbooks have found faults with the freedom movement and glorified Fascism and Nazism,” an excerpt of the article said.