Ceasefire violations by Pakistan in wake of Pahalgam terror attack push 2021 truce to brink of collapse

New Delhi, April 26: After four years, peace along the 778 km-long Line of Control has been shattered, with the Pakistan Army firing all along the disputed boundary, virtually ending the truce pact agreed upon by the two armies.

“On the night of April 25th–26th, unprovoked small (arms) firing was carried out by multiple Pakistan Army posts all across the Line of Control in Kashmir. Indian troops responded appropriately with small arms. No casualties reported,” the Indian Army said in a brief message on Saturday.

Anticipating a rise in ceasefire violations, the villagers living close to the LoC at Poonch have begun cleaning up the government-made bunkers so that they can shift there in case shelling from across the border intensifies.

In February 2021, the armies of India and Pakistan announced stopping the cross-border firing along the LoC in order to have a peaceful atmosphere along the disputed border.

The plan was finalised by the Director General of Military Operations from the two armies, renewing what was agreed upon as per the Simla Pact between the two neighbours.

The truce agreement was realised in the wake of a sharp rise in the number of ceasefire violations. The numbers rose gradually over the years, with 2018 registering 2,140 such violations, followed by 3,479 such incidents in 2019 and an all-time high of 5,133 in 2020.

Consequently, the truce was largely held along the LoC as border-guarding troops from either side didn’t violate the pact by and large, though the Pakistan Army occasionally provided cover fire to the infiltrators.

But in the wake of the Pahalgam carnage, Pakistan initiated unprovoked firing on two consecutive days. The scale was smaller on Thursday, but it intensified a day later.

Chief of the Army Staff Gen Upendra Dwivedi was in Kashmir on Friday to have an on-the-spot assessment of the security scenario in the wake of the terror attack and received briefings from senior commanders on the ground.

While India’s initial response to the Pahalgam attack was largely diplomatic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “India will identify, track and punish every terrorist and their backers. We will pursue them to the ends of the Earth.”

Meanwhile, multiple search and combing operations are going on in Jammu and Kashmir to find out the perpetrators of the attack and to flush out other Pakistani terrorists hiding in the Valley or in the south of Pir Panjal.

In one such operation, a terrorist hideout was successfully located and busted in the forested area of Sedori Nala, Mushtaqabad in Machil. A significant cache of arms and ammunition was recovered from the site, including five AK-47 rifles and over 660 rounds of ammunition.

Sources said more than 120 Pakistani terrorists are currently active in Jammu and Kashmir, of which nearly 70 are in the Valley while the rest are in the Jammu region that witnessed several terror strikes in the last decade.