Four Pakistani soldiers martyred in Indian cross-border shelling

RAWALPINDI: Four Pakistani servicemen were martyred in cross-border shelling by Indian forces on the Line of Control in Azad Jammu and Kashmir’s Jandrot sector on Monday.

According to a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the soldiers were busy working on communication lines in Jandrot sector when they were hit by a mortar round fired by Indian forces.

As a result, four soldiers embraced martyrdom.

Three Indian soldiers were also killed and a few others wounded when Pakistani forces retaliated, the military’s media wing said.

The cross-border shelling comes on the heels of Indian army chief Bipin Rawat’s threats to launch military offensive to “ramp up pressure on Pakistan to stop cross-border terrorism in Kashmir.”

Indian forces have violated on more than 70 occasions the ceasefire along the Line of Control and the Working Boundary in just first 12 days of this year.

This has resulted in the martyrdom of one innocent civilian and injuries to several others. This unprecedented escalation in ceasefire violations by India is continuing since last year when its forces committed more than 1900 ceasefire violations.

Of late Indian Deputy High Commissioner was summoned to the Foreign Office to lodge protest over the breach of the ceasefire agreement.

The Foreign Office said that the ceasefire violations by India were threat to regional peace and security and may lead to a strategic miscalculation.

It urged India to respect the 2003 Ceasefire arrangement; investigate this and other incidents of ceasefire violations; instruct its forces to respect the ceasefire deal, in letter and spirit and maintain peace on the LoC and the Working Boundary.