GILGIT: Seven times during the month of November alone has the Royal Indian Air Force bombed and machine-gunned non-military objectives in Gilgit, writes an Azad Army Observer. “It is noteworthy that for the entire period of a year previous to November, 1948, RIAF bombed Gilgit only four times.

“Obviously this unprecedented activity against the civilian population of Gilgit was designed to synchronise with and in fact was intended to be a part of the all-out offensive that India was conducting against Azad Kashmir territory contrary to the pledge which she had given to the UNCIP. …”

[According to news agencies from Paris,] India denied today [Dec 1] Pakistan’s claims that Indian troops had launched a major offensive in Kashmir with the aim of deciding the state’s future by force. Mr Girja Shankar Bajpai, Secretary-General of External Affairs, declared in a letter to the Security Council “while the Government of India feel that they are perfectly justified, in the face of Pakistan’s invasion of Jammu and Kashmir … . There has been no major offensive nor is any such offensive contemplated.

Published in Dawn, December 2nd, 2023