NEW DELHI: An Indian armyman was killed and two others injured in Pakistani troops firing and mortar shelling along the Line of Control (LoC) in J&K’s Poonch district on Sunday.
Halfway into the year, Pakistan has already violated the LoC ceasefire 2,027 times. As many as 114 instances of ceasefire violations were reported in the first 10 days of June as compared to 181 and 14 instances of ceasefire violations in the whole month in 2019 and 2018 respectively.
In 2019, the Pakistanis had violated the most in the last 16 years with as many as 3,168 instances. The daily rate of ceasefire violations last year stood at an average of nine instances. But going by the current rate of violations, 2020 is likely to turn out even more volatile than the previous year.
In 2018, the number of ceasefire violations stood relatively low at 1,629. From January till June, the number of ceasefire violations have broken all records each month this year.
While there 203, 215, 267, 234 and 221 instances of ceasefire violations in January, February, March, April and May 2019, cross-border firings almost doubled every month this year. There were 367, 366, 411, 387 and 382 instances of ceasefire violations in January, February, March, April and May.
Even under the COVID situation, there was no let down in operations in Jammu and Kashmir and this let to engagements between the troops and terrorists.
“A lot of terrorists have been killed this year. Pakistan Army is trying to increase the number of infiltration so that instability is maintained in the valley thus they are restoring to such heightened ceasefire violation,” said a source.
As many as 98 terrorists have been killed by the security forces, government sources said. Till May 31, 52 locals were allegedly recruited by terror organisations.
In the previous year and a year before that, 119 and 219 locals were recruited by terrorist organisations.
Sources in security agencies said that efforts are on to rehabilitate these 52 people into the mainstream.