Pakistan Has Dominated India in 'Kinetic Conflict' Since Balakot Strikes, Minister Says

© AP Photo / Aqeel AhmedPakistani reporters and troops visit the site of an Indian airstrike in Jaba, near Balakot, Pakistan, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019. Pakistan said India launched an airstrike on its territory early Tuesday that caused no casualties, while India said it targeted a terrorist training camp in a pre-emptive strike that killed a "very large number" of militants.
Pakistani reporters and troops visit the site of an Indian airstrike in Jaba, near Balakot, Pakistan, Tuesday, Feb. 26, 2019. Pakistan said India launched an airstrike on its territory early Tuesday that caused no casualties, while India said it targeted a terrorist training camp in a pre-emptive strike that killed a very large number of militants. - Sputnik International, 1920, 26.10.2021
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Pakistan said in 2019 that it had killed more than 60 Indian soldiers along the Line of Control (LoC). Overall, both sides have suffered troop casualties at the border in ceasefire violations. Before agreeing to a ceasefire in February, for the preceding two years the two sides had exchanged fire almost every day at the border.
Pakistani Minister Asad Umar on Tuesday slammed India for allegedly harbouring hopes of crushing Islamabad.
A member of Prime Minister Imran Khan’s ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, the federal minister also accused India's Narendra Modi-led government of refusing to "work out" the differences that exist between the two neighbours.
Umar, who is Pakistan's federal minister for planning, development, reforms, and special initiatives, took to Twitter on Tuesday to express his thoughts.
The Indian Army has accused Pakistan of having violated the ceasefire at the Line of Control (LoC) and the international border 3,479 times in 2019. New Delhi further claims that Pakistan carried out 5,133 ceasefire violations (CFVs) in 2020, the highest since 2003.
Before the two militaries agreed to a ceasefire in February 2021, the Pakistani Army had already committed just under 600 CFVs, according to the Indian Army.
Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the Pakistani military, said that the Indian Army violated the ceasefire 2,333 times up to September of last year, according to reports.
Besides direct military confrontation along the border, India also accuses Pakistan of providing logistical support and training to terrorists to carry out attacks in Kashmir and other parts of the country.
According to the South Asian Terrorism Portal (SATP), a website tracking militancy across the region, around 244 terrorist incidents were recorded in Jammu and Kashmir in 2020, compared with 594 such acts in 2019.
The SATP also says that 44 terrorists were gunned down by Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir in 2021 (up to April), and 232 terrorists were killed in encounters in 2020.
In 2019, a total of 163 terrorist deaths were recorded in the disputed region, according to the SATP.
In response to a deadly terrorist attack on an Indian paramilitary convoy in February 2019 that was claimed by Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) - a Pakistani jihadist organisation which is widely considered a terrorist group - Indian Air Force (IAF) jets crossed over into Pakistan to bomb alleged terrorist launchpads of the proscribed JeM in the area of Balakot.
The strikes were carried out as punishment for the 2019 Pulwama suicide bombing attack that left 20 security personnel killed while travelling in a convoy of vehicles on the Jammu–Srinagar National Highway.
Pakistan claims that Indian jets just hit empty patches of land before returning to their bases.
A day after the Balakot strikes, Pakistan scrambled its F-16 jets to India, prompting India to dispatch its MIG-29 Bisons to chase away the intruding enemy warplanes.
In the ensuing dogfight, an Indian jet crossed over into Pakistan-administered Kashmir and crashed. An Indian pilot captured by Pakistan was released a day later.
Pakistani reporters and troops visit the site of an Indian airstrike in Jaba, near Balakot, Pakistan, 26 February 2019 - Sputnik International, 1920, 08.10.2019
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Months later, in August 2019, India abolished Article 370 (a constitutional article affording semi-autonomous political status to the region) in Jammu and Kashmir and split what was then one state into two union territories.
New Delhi has argued that the decision has directly contributed to economic development in the disputed region and led to a decline in terrorism.
The move has been rejected by Pakistan, which has competing claims over the Kashmir region.
Not only did Pakistan downgrade its diplomatic ties with India after the 2019 decision, Prime Minister Khan has also refused to hold talks with his Indian counterpart Modi until New Delhi reverses its moves.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan speaks to The Associated Press, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Monday, March 16, 2020 - Sputnik International, 1920, 30.06.2020
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India, meanwhile, has repeatedly stated that Pakistan has no "locus standi" or authority on the developments in Jammu and Kashmir, which New Delhi says is an "internal matter" for it to handle.
In another social media post, Minister Umar said that there couldn't be any alternative to dialogue between India and Pakistan, on account of their shared history as well as geographical proximity.

"We should have a comprehensive dialogue for resolving all our differences for a shared future of peace and prosperity. Pakistan is ready. Is India ready?", asked Umar.

Indian and Pakistani officials also engaged in "backchannel talks" between December 2020 and April of this year in an attempt to resume the stalled talks, according to the Pakistani English-language daily publication Dawn.
However, Islamabad set a series of conditions for New Delhi to take the dialogue forward, which included reversing some of its decisions on Kashmir taken in August 2019.

Comparisons in Managing the COVID Pandemic

Minister Umar also claimed in his social media post that Pakistan has fared much better on managing the COVID-19 pandemic than India, which witnessed a particularly devastating second wave in the months of April and May of this year.
Police personnel patrol the village  in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh (File) - Sputnik International, 1920, 25.05.2021
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COVID Deaths Continue to Haunt Villages Even as Data Shows Catastrophic Second Wave Waning in India
Umar chairs the National Command and Operation Centre (NCOC), an organisation responsible for dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan.
India has recorded nearly 34 million COVID infections and close to 455,000 COVID-related fatalities, with a death rate of a bit more than 1 percent of those who have been infected.
However, in COVID-19 global rankings, India has been the second worst hit country on Earth thanks to the devastating second wave which saw the South Asian nation undergoing a crippling shortage of oxygen, COVID-19-related medicines, and hospital beds.
Pakistan has so far witnessed 1.2 million cases, resulting in 28,228 deaths, according to statistics. The death rate in Pakistan from COVID is around 2 percent of those who have been infected.
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