India resorts to firing artillery barrages after 13 years across LoC

ISLAMABAD: After a gap of 13 years, India resorted to the use of artillery barrages against Pakistan last week, further escalating the violations at the Line of Control (LoC), with the result that seven Pakistani soldiers lost their lives on Sunday.

Pakistan retaliated by firing back, resulting in 11 Indian soldiers being taken out in the Bhimber sector. The artillery barrages deliver massed artillery fire from a few or many batteries while firing at a continuous and steady rate, using high explosive or shrapnel shells.

The last time that Indian troops launched artillery barrages against the Pakistan Army was in 1999 during the Kargil operation when it recaptured Tiger Hill, a mountain in Drass-Kargil area, where according to Indian media reports each artillery battery fired over one round per minute for 17 days continuously.

Pakistan has reiterated time and again that India’s is denying access to the United Nations Military Observers Group for India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) that has been mandated to maintain peace and tranquillity on the LoC and the working boundary.

Earlier in the week, Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry summoned Indian High Commissioner Gautam Bambawale and reminded him that “this belligerent attitude of Indian occupation forces was a serious threat to the regional peace and security and may lead to a strategic miscalculation”.

On Thursday, it was Pakistan’s permanent representative at the United Nations, Ambassador Maleeha Lodhi, who in a letter to the president of the UN Security Council and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon pointed out that Indian occupation troops in Kashmir launched artillery barrages last week in a "major escalation" of attacks on the LoC threatening regional peace and security.

While Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Raheel Sharif challenged India to own up its 11 soldiers that had lost their lives, on Thursday, the Indian Army’s Northern Command denied that any Indian soldier had lost his life on November 14, 15 or 16.

“Indian occupation troops in Kashmir launched artillery barrages last week in a "major escalation" of attacks on the Line of Control (LoC) threatening regional peace and security. This was the first use of such weapons in 13 years and was a clear indication of the Indian intention to further escalate tensions and undermine regional peace and security,” she wrote, and argued that this was an effort by India to divert international attention from its continued violations of human rights in IHK.

Maleeha Lodhi called on the UN chief and the Security Council, "as the custodians of international peace and security", to take note of the continued ceasefire violations by India that pose a real danger to regional peace and security.

She told the UN authorities that the frequency of these violations has increased over the last two months. She wrote, “Indiscriminate firing and shelling, deliberately targeting civilian populated areas, have resulted in 26 civilian casualties and injury to another 107 civilians, including women and children, in the past two months.”

Pakistan, she wrote, has condemned these continued ceasefire violations which are a contravention of the 2003 ceasefire understanding, as well as of international law. “Pakistan, of course, fully cooperates and provides unhindered access to UNMOGIP on its side of the LoC and the working boundary,” she added.

In her letter to the president of Security Council Fode Seck, Maleeha Lodhi also requested for the letter to be circulated to all the members of the Security Council, under the agenda item: “The India-Pakistan Question”. The letter has since been circulated as an official document of the Council.