NEW DELHI: There has been a major spike in ceasefire violations across the Line of Control (LoC), according to the latest government data.
Halfway into the year, Pakistan has already violated the ceasefire 2027 times. As many as 114 instances of ceasefire violations were witnessed along the LoC 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.
The year 2019 recorded the highest number of ceasefire violations by Pakistan in the previous 16 years when the ceasefire agreement in place since 2003 was breached as many as 3168 times. 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 1629. From January till June, the number of ceasefire violations have broken all records each month this year.
While there were 203, 215,267,234, and 221 instances of ceasefire violations in the months of January, February, March, April, and May 2019; instances of 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 2020.
Even under the COVID-19 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 restoring to such heightened ceasefire violation in a bid to increase the number of infiltration to create instability in the valley,” said a source.
As many as 98 terrorists have been killed while trying to infiltrate into the Indian territory or fomenting trouble in the border areas, government sources said. They added that Pakistan-backed terror outfits have tried to mislead people from the Kashmir valley into joining militancy ranks. 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 extremist outfits.