By Amit Agnihotri

New Delhi: Pakistan is keeping India‘s western border hot and is opening a new confrontation, even as the Indian armed forces are tackling a military conflict with China on its northern borders.

Pakistan has been indulging in unprovoked firing on Indian positions and on civilian settlements resulting in 21 Indian deaths and another 94 injured till date in 2020, in 2,711 ceasefire violations.

Miffed over Pakistan’s continuing belligerence along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in the form of heavy shelling by its armed forces, India registered a strong protest with its neighbour.

The Indian Ministry of External Affairs summoned the Charge d’Affaires of the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi over the death of three innocent civilians, including a child and injury to another child in the recent ceasefire violations.

The deaths happened in firing by Pakistani forces on the night of July 17 in Krishna Ghati Sector in Jammu and Kashmir. All the deceased persons belonged to a single family.

“India condemns, in the strongest terms, the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians by Pakistan forces,” India’s external affairs ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said in a statement yesterday.

India told the Pakistan Charge de’Affaires that the western neighbour should adhere to the 2003 ceasefire agreement for maintaining peace and tranquility along the LoC and the International Boundary.

Pakistan has been miffed since Aug. last when Parliament of India scrapped the controversial Article 370 of the Constitution of India, as it had been blocking the complete integration of the erstwhile state of J&K into the national mainstream.

Since then, Pakistan forces have resorted to unprovoked shelling along the LoC and has been pushing terrorists across the border to foment trouble in the J&K union territory.

India also protested Pakistan’s continued support to cross-border terrorist infiltration into India, including supporting cover fire provided by Pakistani forces.

Recently, India had exposed Pakistan during an online discussion on counter-terrorism organised by the United Nations in New York, saying the western neighbour had become a global safe haven for terrorists and was known as a terror hub.

Of late, Pakistan had been trying to fish in troubled waters, as India got busy with the Chinese aggression along the Line of Actual Control in the eastern parts of Union Territory of Ladakh, where the two armies are facing each other even as a mutual disengagement is being implemented.

Pakistan has been regularly bragging about its friendship with China in the world fora. Besides terrorism, India had recently strongly protested the construction of a China-backed dam in the Gilgit-Baltistan area, which is part of the Indian Union Territory of Ladakh, which is illegally occupied by Pakistan since 1947-48.

Another low point in the India-Pakistan bilateral relations has been New Delhi asking Islamabad to reduce it’s high commission strength by half and matched the same in the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, over continuing involvement of Pakistan staff in espionage activities in India.