India opens fire again, kills second Pak soldier
11 January, 2013
ISLAMABAD: There was once again an escalation of hostilities on the Line of Control (LOC) on Thursday when the Indian troops shot and killed a Pakistani soldier at Hotspring sector in Battai, the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) stated.
Talking to our sources, a military officer said that Indian soldiers had not crossed the LOC, but had resorted to unprovoked firing, which claimed the life of Havildar Mohyuddin .
The Indian media, meanwhile, reported that Indian commanders admitted that they had built new observation posts in the area while "construction work is barred under a 10-year-old ceasefire agreement between the two rivals."
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was by late evening trying to get details of the Hotspring incident before going ahead with a formal protest at the diplomatic level, and the Indian high commissioner was expected to be summoned on Friday.
From Washington, US Secretary State Hillary Clinton instructed US Ambassador Richard Olson to meet with Pakistani officials as the US was "concerned about reports of violence along the LOC in Kashmir".
"We continue to strongly support any efforts to improve relations between the two countries. We've also discussed these latest incidents with both governments, urged them to talk to each other and urged calm," said the spokesperson at State Department.
Pakistan has stopped all trucks from moving across the LOC on the trade route."We have done this as a precautionary step so that there are no chances of these trucks getting caught in the line of unprovoked fire that is coming from the Indian side," an official told.
Just a few hours before the fresh incident at the LOC brought casualty figures on both sides to four, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said she did not see these incidents as derailing the peace process.
Speaking at the Foreign Office, Minister Khar asked, "Will it derail the process, I will hope not. Because of some unnecessary statements, atmospherics were created which I hope both countries will show their commitment to correct. As a responsible country if we have a mechanism to face such challenges, as a responsible country revert to those mechanisms that exist so that we can continue with our relations as normal neighbours. Therefore, contact between the DGMOs was made. Ambassadors were called in and offered UNMOGIP. Don't expect us to respond to every statement which comes from India."
However, New Delhi rejected any inquiry by UNMOGIP with Finance Minister P Chidambaram telling the media that "We are certainly not going to agree to internationalise the issue or allow the United Nations to hold an inquiry. That demand is obviously rejected out of hand." Minister Khar nevertheless said that the government had demonstrated deep and abiding commitment to improve the relations and trust building with India.
"We have walked the talk by normalising trade and relaxing the visa regime. We cannot give credence to each and every comment (coming from India). These are two countries which have had immense problems in the past. We followed the mechanisms that have been specified for dealing with such incidents and we abided by the ceasefire mechanisms. We went through the processes. Unfortunately, there were contradictory statements coming from India. Their Northern Army commander saying there was no decapitation, no beheading.
Yet some very responsible sources were saying there was. And unfortunately there was a very strong statement. Still what you saw yesterday was I believe a sense of trying to de-escalate on their side also from those statements. I think that was the right way to go. Lot of people say why doesn't Pakistan not resort to making strong statements? I think we should be proud of that: that we make responsible statements. This is not just the Government of Pakistan but also the people of Pakistan. The people of Pakistan are now looking at this region in a different way and extending a hand of friendship to all its neighbours like never before. So I am proud to be representing a government which has a deep, an abiding commitment to improving its relations with all its neighbours, including India. We have had a difficult past with them and I am proud of the fact that we have acted responsibly every time we have been faced with a challenging situation."
At the political level, India did not disappoint and gave visas to nine hockey players headed for the Indian Hockey Premier League while the visa liberalisation policy will also start functioning from January 15.
Minister Khar said that granting the MFN status to India was very much on the cards, despite the LOC skirmishes."Even at this time our commitment is to normalise relations with India in all aspects. I like to look at it as trade normalisation because we are not granting India any special favour. We are granting India the same treatment that we grant to other countries around the world. There is a commitment of this government to go ahead with that. There are processes which need to be pursued and a delay of a few weeks here and there should not be any cause of worry. However, we are keen that there are no invisible barriers because it's easy to normalise trade by giving each other MFN status. Pakistan is committed to ensure that there are no barriers to trade; visible and invisible what you call tariff/non-tariff barriers. All of these should be ceased to exist and we should walk the talk of complete trade normalization," she said.
The foreign minister despite several queries said that she was not going to respond to any statement that comes out of anywhere in India.
"There was an official statement that came out and there was an official response to that. But any statement emanating from the millions of people in India does not deserve a response from the government. Do we want to emulate and follow somebody else's lead or do we want to lead ourselves? I say as Pakistanis are very proud to be leading towards a track of trust building and normalising this region which has been very unstable because of irresponsible actions and statements like the ones you are referring to. If you want to be a contributor, propagator and a promoter to that instability, I will say this government chooses not to do so. I think we should be proud of the Pakistani people who makes us do so."
She complemented the Pakistani media for being responsible at this time. "It stands for playing a proactive role in normalising relations and building peace and I hope your counterparts on the other side will follow your lead," she added.
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