Pakistan has escalated ‘ceasefire violations’ along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir in the last few days in a bid to demonstrate “Kashmir as a potential flashpoint and seek world attention”, Indian Army sources told ANI news agency adding that Islamabad is hoping to play the ‘victim card’.
Indian Army Sources: With United Nations sessions to commence shortly, Pakistan can play victim card and with hope that 'escalating ceasefire violations may invite due attention' https://t.co/v3Olmz8hHm
— ANI (@ANI) August 16, 2019
Earlier this week, Pakistan wrote to the Security Council President requesting a discussion on the Indian government's decision to strip Jammu and Kashmir of its special status. New Delhi through a Presidential decree amended Articles 370 and 35A of the Constitution, revoking the special status granted to the former princely state when it chose to accede to India in 1947.
Indian Parliament endorsed the Presidential decree and passed legislation to divide the state into two federally administered territories.
Pakistan, which claims to be a stakeholder of Kashmir came out strongly against the Indian decision and in protest, downsized its diplomatic ties with New Delhi, suspended trade and snapped communication links.
Pakistan's Army has been posturing since then, and threatened that it "will firmly stand by the Kashmiris in their just struggle to the very end".
New Delhi had put political leaders from the state under preventive custody to quell possible trouble, imposed strict prohibitory orders and suspended telephone links and mobile internet.
On Friday, the government told the Supreme Court of India, it will gradually relax the prohibitory orders, in response to a series of petitions questioning the revocation of Article 370 and 35A, and a media gag.
Following the federal government's undertaking to the apex court, a top Kashmiri bureaucrat announced on Friday, that the government would review the preventive detentions of political leaders. The state Chief Secretary B.V.R. Subrahmanyam told media, restrictions would also be relaxed at the earliest, as law and order improve. He said this was being done to prevent terrorist forces from wreaking havoc, as was the case in the past.
