Five members of a family were killed and two others injured in mortar shelling by Pakistani troops along the Line of Control (LoC) in the Pir Panchal Valley on Sunday morning. Five soldiers were injured in an exchange of fire.
An Army spokesman said in Jammu that the Pakistani Army opened “an unprovoked and indiscriminate firing” from 7.45 a.m. to 11.30 a.m. near the LoC in the Balakote sector of Poonch.
“Small arms and 81-mm and 120-mm mortars were used by Pakistan to attack innocent civilians, their homes and livestock. The provocation has resulted in the loss of five precious and innocent civilian lives,” Lt. Col. Devender Anand said.
Effective retaliation
The Army said it “retaliated strongly, effectively and proportionately to the dastardly act.”
Mohammad Ramzan, 35, his wife Malika Bi, 32, Abdul Rehman, 14, Mohammad Rizwan, 12, and Razaq Ramzan, 7, were killed in a mortar shell explosion near their home in Devta Dhar village. Two other injured members of the family — Mehreen, 6, and Noureen,12, — were airlifted to a Jammu hospital, where their condition was said to be critical.
House gutted
Poonch Deputy Commissioner Tariq Ahmad Zargar said: “The house was gutted in the shelling.”
In the afternoon, five soldiers were wounded in Pakistani shelling at Mendhar in Poonch. The injured soldiers were airlifted to Udhampur for treatment, a police officer said.
Mr. Zargar appealed to the people living in vulnerable areas to shift their families to safer places identified by the district administration.
“Construction of 40 community bunkers are at a finishing stage here. A process to build individual household bunkers in targeted areas will be started soon for the safety of civilians,” he said.
The Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported that nine persons were injured on the other side of the LoC in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Official data suggest that Jammu and Kashmir witnessed 192 incidents of ceasefire violations by Pakistan this year.
“The unusual escalation resulted in a high death toll. The casualties in January 2018 alone equalled the figure for the entire 2017. And 2017 itself was an exceptional year for ceasefire violations, as it saw a six-fold increase from 2015,” said the report released by the BJP leader and former Union Minister, Yashwant Sinha, and his Group of Concerned Citizens.
Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and National Conference working president Omar Abdullah expressed shock over the casualties. “The incident is heart-wrenching. It has caused a wave of shock among the people. Dialogue and reconciliation are the only means of getting the State and the region out of this vicious cycle of blood-spilling,” Ms. Mufti said. Mr. Abdullah demanded adherence to the 2003 ceasefire agreement. “The ceasefire agreement has been restricted to papers. We demand that the pact, extended as a confidence-building measure to the people of Kashmir, be adhered to,” he said.
All Parties Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq said he was “saddened and distressed” by the deaths. “Such tragic situations can easily be avoided if India and Pakistan realise the futility of hostility and adopt a realistic and humanistic approach.”
