Don’t allow further ceasefire violations along Indo-Pak border; Prakash Karat

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Kolkata, Jan 20: Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) leader Prakash Karat has called upon the Central Government to ensure that Pakistan does not violate the ceasefire across the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir.

He said the issue needs to be dealt with vigilantly and without delay.

“We have already issued a statement on the tensions lying on the Line of Control (LoC). We want the government to take up the matter with Pakistani authorities at the highest level to ensure that such violations of the ceasefire do not recur but at the same time, we want the dialogue process with Pakistan to continue; we do not want any curbs on people to people relations between the two countries,” said Karat.

He also denounced Pakistan’s inhuman attacks against India in the context of a soldier of Indian Army being beheaded.

Three Pakistani and two Indian soldiers have been killed this month in the worst outbreak of tit-for-tat violence in Kashmir since India and Pakistan agreed to a ceasefire along a de facto border there nearly a decade ago.

Pakistani High Commissioner to India Salman Bashir said India could have worked with Pakistan to get to the bottom of what happened instead of “stirring raw emotions and upping the rhetoric”, adding that “Pakistan bashing has become fashionable” in India.

Following public and media outrage after India said one of its soldiers had been decapitated, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said there could be ‘no business as usual’ with Pakistan. Army Chief General Bikram Singh said his commanders should retaliate if provoked.

Indian-Pakistani relations had improved after plummeting in 2008 when gunmen killed 166 people in Mumbai in a three-day rampage that India blamed on LeT.

However, firing and small skirmishes are common along the internationally recognised 740-kilometer (460-mile) LoC despite the ceasefire that was agreed in 2003.

Government officials on both sides have insisted over the past two days that the latest flare-up will not derail talks to improve relations, and experts say an escalation is unlikely. (ANI)