At least nine people were killed and dozens wounded in cross-border firing by Indian and Pakistani forces. This was less than a week after high level talks between these estranged neighbors were called off, it is safe to say that enough is enough. The firing coincided with the day India marks the 50th anniversary of the 1965 war between the neighbors. India has not moved far from its warmongering, and that India would celebrate the war and fire at Pakistan the same day is proof. This latest deadly round of shelling started after Indian troops were found to be using an excavator close to the Working Boundary in contravention of agreed standard operating procedures. Firing continued by both sides overnight on August 27-28. The Indians were not firing blind, they knew the coordinates of the villages that they were targeting and would be well aware via satellite imagery that there were no military units in the vicinity. They deliberately and with malice aforethought killed and injured innocent men, women and children. As has become routine of late, the Indian High Commissioner was summoned to the Foreign Office and a strong protest against the incident lodged. The details available of what may have triggered the exchange of fire points to a yawning gap in the arrangements for the commanders of either side on the ground to be in communication precisely to prevent such outbreaks of violence. While the Pakistan Rangers and Indian Border Security Force commanders are expected to meet in New Delhi on September 9, and the increasingly frequent exchange of firing will top the agenda, the meeting would be well advised to address any gaps or lacunae in the ‘hot line’ the local border security forces are supposed to maintain between themselves. Nothing has been achieved by this artillery engagement. As far as may be determined, Pakistan did not initiate the action and India fired first. There was no territorial gain to be made, no ground invasion to follow the artillery fire, nor was there any intention of such. The aim was solely to terrorise and intimidate, to raise the political temperature at a time when above all else, it needed lowering and to further impede a peace process that must now be considered dead in the water. The Foreign Office has summoned the Indian high commissioner for a dressing down, but it is no more than a diplomatic minuet, symbolic but bereft of real meaning. Army Chief General Raheel Sharif has likewise condemned the shelling and it is going to be for the DGMOs to broker, if they can, a return to relative quiet. It is high time armchair politics stop. If talks are failing between both countries, maybe it is time to reach out for international help. But can international organisations see through India’s smokescreen of bright Bollywood colors and Modi’s selfies? If they could, the matter of Kashmir, water and terrorism would have been sorted long ago.
pk.shafaqna.com
