NEW DELHI: India summoned Pakistan’s High Commissioner Abdul Basit on Sunday to protest alleged ceasefire violations by Pakistani troops along the Line of Control (LoC) but the envoy said his side favoured a more effective mechanism to watch the border closely to pin blame for any future breach.

Mr Basit’s tone was of a piece with his comments on Friday when he declared at an independence day meeting here that the Kashmir dispute would never be put on the backburner.

He, however, stopped short of clarifying whether this meant that Pakistan would persist with a traditional meeting with Kashmiri resistance leaders when Mr Sartaj Aziz comes to New Delhi to meet his counterpart on Aug 23-24.

According to the Press Trust of India, Mr Basit was summoned to the External Affairs Ministry by Secretary East Anil Wadhwa who conveyed to the envoy India’s strong protest over the “unprovoked firing” by the Pakistani troops along the LoC. Six Indian civilians have lost their lives in two days, he was told.

Emerging from the meeting with Mr Wadhwa, a defiant Mr Basit accused India of 70 ceasefire violations along the LoC and International Boundary in the months of July and August and called for a more effective mechanism to determine who indulges in the unprovoked firing, PTI said.

“We are concerned about ceasefire violations. In the months of July and August, there have been close to 70 ceasefire violations from this side of the LoC and the Working Boundary. We are obviously very concerned about it.

“Our side would like to have a more effective mechanism in place so as to determine who indulges in these unprovoked firing,” Mr Basit, who was in the MEA for around 15 minutes, told reporters.

PTI said the six were killed in heavy firing and mortar bomb shelling by Pakistani troops at several Indian posts and civilian areas since Saturday. Pakis­tan causes India of relentless violations saying people have been killed on its side.

On India’s Independence Day on Saturday, five Indian civilians, including a sarpanch, were claimed to have been killed and five others injured in heavy firing and mortar bomb shelling. A woman was killed on Sunday in heavy mortar shelling from the Pakistani side, PTI said.

It added that there had been escalation of tension between the two countries following terror attacks in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir and incidents of ceasefire violations ahead of talks between their National Security Advisers (NSAs).

Ties further soured recently with Pakistan refusing to invite Jammu and Kashmir Assembly speaker to a conference of Com­mon­wealth Parliamentary Asso­ciation, in protest against which India decided to boycott the meeting to be held in Islamabad from Sept 30 to Oct 8, the agency said.

During the NSA talks, PTI said, India was expected to present strong evidence of terrorism emanating from Pakistan highlighted further by recent attacks in Gurdaspur in Punjab and near Udhampur in Jammu and Kashmir.

It said India’s case was bolstered by the capture of Mohammed Naved Yakub, a Pakistani national and an LeT operative, who carried out an attack on a BSF bus last week near Udhampur.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Saturday had greeted his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on Independence Day and hoped that bilateral issues would be settled through sustained and comprehensive talks.

Ahead of NSA-level talks, Mr Basit had said on Friday his country would not “abandon” the Kashmiris’ “legitimate struggle for freedom”, stressing that to have normal and cooperative relationship with India it was necessary to settle the decades-old dispute.

Reacting sharply to the comments, India said: “The only struggle in J&K is against Pakistani-sponsored terrorism. This will be the subject of the upcoming NSA-level talks.”

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2015

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