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India Accused Of Targeting Civilians, Steps Up Mobilization In Kashmir
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Sardar Sikander called on India to stop targeting civilians |
MUZAFFARABAD, Kashmir, May 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Prime Minister of Pakistani Kashmir Sunday accused the Indian army of targeting civilians, as the death toll from artillery duels rose to seven, with 41 injured.
The Pakistani military said in a statement that more than 20 villages were affected by the heavy Indian shelling, which continued into its third day across the border of the disputed territory as well as Kashmir's boundary with Pakistan, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
It said that since the bombardment began, three people had been killed in Kel sector, two in Aathmuqam, one in Chakothi and one in Bhimbher. All were civilians.
Bhimber deputy commissioner Fayyaz Abbasi told AFP that a 40-year-old woman died Sunday in an attack on a village in the southernmost district. Another five men including a teenager were injured, he said.
The military also said that India's "unprovoked firing" caused heavy damage to civilian property and many houses were destroyed in the barrage by medium-size and field artillery mortars and direct firing weapons.
"The Pakistan army is responding effectively to the unprovoked firing on the civilian population by targeting the Indian military positions," it said.
Pakistani Kashmir leader Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan called on India to "de-escalate and stop killing civilians" as he visited the wounded in hospital in Muzaffarabad.
"The Indian troops are purely targeting the civilian populations. By all standards, it is terrorism but I wonder why the international community is tongue-tied on it," he said.
"I once again call upon the international community not to look at the situation as silent spectators. They should intervene in Kashmir," he said.
Cross-border shelling along the tense de facto border, known as the Line of Control (LoC) has intensified since an attack Tuesday on a passenger bus and army base in Indian-controlled Jammu, which killed 35 people.
Meanwhile, Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh announced Sunday a significant military change for troops in disputed Kashmir, with paramilitary forces there transferred from the command of the interior ministry to the army, AFP reported.
He also announced, at the end of a two-hour meeting between Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and his security cabinet, that the coastguard had been placed under the command of the Indian navy.
"The Indian paramilitary forces on the border have been placed under the overall command of the army and the coastguard will be under naval command," Singh said.
"The rationale is part of the preparation as there can only be one authority if they are on border duty," Singh said. He described the change as "standard operating procedure".
India's paramilitary contingent comprises hundreds of thousands of combat-ready troops, a major chunk of whom are already deployed on the 440-Kilometer long LoC.
Singh also warned that (what he termed as) cross-border strikes by Pakistani gunners in Indian-administered Kashmir will be answered with equal firepower from India's security forces.
"If any artillery fire comes on our forces from across the border then they will be immediately retaliated," Singh said.
The decisions were taken during a two-hour meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), summoned by Vajpayee for the second time in two days.
The CCS comprises Home Minister L.K. Advani, Defence Minister George Fernandes, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha and Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, as well as the chiefs of the Indian army, navy and air force.
Indian military officials earlier announced that three soldiers and a paramilitary troop plus a Kashmiri activist were killed when Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba independence claiming group launched an attack early Sunday on the Chasana army camp at Reasi, near the southern town of Udhampur.
Seven Indian soldiers were injured, three of them critically when a group of three Kashmiris barged into the camp, throwing grenades and firing indiscriminately, the officials said.
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