ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Sunday lodged the second protest in two days over casualties along the Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir due to ceasefire violations by Indian forces.

The Foreign Office’s Dir­ec­tor General for South Asia and Saarc, Dr Mohammad Faisal, summoned Indian Deputy High Commissioner J.P. Singh and condemned fresh unprovoked ceasefire violations by the Indian forces in Chirikot and Satwal sectors on July 8, resulting in the killing of three women and injuries to another.

According to a Foreign Office spokesman, two women were killed in Tetri Note and one in Chaffar village.

“The deliberate targeting of civilians is indeed deplorable and contrary to human dignity and international human rights and humanitarian laws,” the spokesman said.

The director general urged India to respect the 2003 ceasefire arrangement, investigate this and other incidents of violations, instruct its forces to respect the ceasefire in letter and spirit and maintain peace on the LoC.

Categorically rejecting the Indian allegations of infiltration across the LoC, he said Pakistan had consistently maintained that it was essential that the United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) be allowed to play its role as mandated by UN Security Council resolutions.

It was India which on the one hand routinely alleged infiltration attempts and yet paradoxically stopped the UNMOGIP from performing its duties, he said.

The director general for South Asia and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation said Indian attempts to deflect international attention from the worsening situation in India-held Kashmir due to its repressive measures, by heating up the LoC, would fail.

The Foreign Office had summoned the Indian deputy high commissioner on Saturday as well to lodge protest against an earlier incident of unprovoked firing by Indian troops that claimed the lives of five civilians, including two in the Chirikot and Satwal sectors.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2017