Pakistan’s intensified and unabated ceasefire violations on the line of Control (loC) in Jammu & Kashmir are being seen as General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani’s clear signal to the new Nawaz Sharif dispensation that it will be the Army that will decide the Kashmir policy and not the civilian regime.
Ceasefire violations increased soon after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s peace overtures to India a few weeks back, with more than 85 violations having taken place so far on the loC. This figure is the highest ever in the last four years for the period from January to August. Twenty five incidents took place in the last fortnight alone after Pakistani commandos killed five Indian soldiers in Poonch on August 6.
Though increase in infiltration bids between September and November, before ingress routes get blocked, is a normal pattern, Indian Army officials say this time around such attempts could see a further surge. “And so will the firing by the Pakistani Army to facilitate the intruders’ entry,” they said. The ceasefire violations are also seen in the context of Pakistan’s renewed attempts at shifting international focus back on Kashmir as a “zone of conflict” from Afghanistan. Actively backing Taliban and providing cover to its key commanders there, the powerful Pakistan Army is therefore keeping the pot boiling by firing on the loC and pushing in more militants.
While the Pakistan Army has always provided covering fire to the militants trying to sneak into India from across the loC, the cross-border raid by its commandos on August 6 and sustained firing on Indian posts all across the loC from Samba in Jammu to Kargil in ladakh clearly indicate a change in Pakistan’s strategy, officials said here on Saturday. Officials said the Pakistan Army has all along dictated the Kashmir policy and Islamabad’s offer to resume talks with India worried the powerful military establishment in Rawalpindi.
Not willing to give up the stranglehold on foreign policy especially in the context of Kashmir, the Pakistan military commanders ramped up ceasefire violations in clear infringement of the 2003 accord between the two countries on the 750-km long loC to maintain peace, they said. The present situation on the loC with one violation nearly every day since August 6 has raised temperatures in India with political parties demanding strong action against Pakistan. The general public mood is also not in favour of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh meeting Sharif on the sidelines of UN General Assembly session in New York, next month.
Officials said by keeping the loC hot, the Pakistan Army has successfully achieved its objective of stalling the possibility of resumption of composite dialogue for the next few months. Moreover, Kayani, who is due to retire in November, has made it amply clear that the Army’s writ will run on Kashmir policy by heightening tension on the loC even though Pakistan democratically elected the Sharif Government.
Coupled with this factor, the Pakistan Army, which was so far engaged in keeping vigil on its border with Afghanistan during the US-led international action against terror there post 911, is shifting focus on Kashmir now. Claiming that the Kashmir issue is a genuine uprising by people there against India, the ISI and Army wants to build international opinion that Pakistan is not the perpetrator and is only providing moral support to the aspirations of Kashmiris.