Ceasefire decision a conscious call by India, Pak, says top Army officer

A top Army officer has called the latest ceasefire agreement with Pakistan as a “conscious call” by both countries and that Kashmir saw a peaceful previous year, news agencies reported.

India and Pakistan militaries said on February 25 that they had agreed to stop firing along the Line of Control ( LoC) in Kashmir. “In the interest of achieving mutually beneficial and sustainable peace along the borders, the two DGMOs agreed to address each other’s core issues and concerns which have propensity to disturb peace and lead to violence,” a joint statement said, referring to the military operations heads of the two countries.

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General Officer Commanding of the Army’s 15 Corps, Lieutenant General BS Raju told the media on Monday (March 1) that the Army would give the ceasefire its “best shot.” “If something is happening, we will not be trigger happy. I’m sure the good officers across the border will also make it a success,” he said, adding the task at hand was to make the ceasefire successful.

Lt Gen Raju rejected suggestions that the Covid pandemic led to the “quiet” situation. “The year 2020 has been one of the most peaceful times. The situation in the valley remains fairly normal. All the parameters of violence, be it stone-pelting, agitations or bandhs, have shown a dip,” said Lt Gen Raju, who will take charge as the new Director General of Military Operations.

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Indian security agencies have said there were 5,100 instances of ceasefire violation by Pakistan along the Line of Control (LoC) in 2020 in J&K, the highest in nearly 18 years, which claimed 36 lives and left more than 130 people injured.

There were 3,289 ceasefire violations by the Pakistan army along the border in 2019, they said. Of these, 1,565 ceasefire violations took place since August 2019, after India scrapped Article 370 that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated the erstwhile state into UTs.