Pakistan Violates Ceasefire In Jammu And Kashmir’s Balakot Sector, Fires Four Mortar Shells

Pakistan on Monday violated ceasefire in Jammu and Kashmir’s in Balakot sector of Mendhar. According to the news agency ANI, Pakistan fired four mortar shells. Earlier, a senior BSF officer had said that the ceasefire violated by Pakistan along the Line of Control is to provide cover to militants infiltrating into Jammu and Kashmir.

Inspector General BSF Ajmal Singh was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a function. "Whenever there is infiltration, there is firing from the Pakistani side. The purpose of ceasefire violation is to facilitate infiltration, but our forces are alert to ensure that there is no infiltration," he said.

Singh said there was no connection between the abrogation of provisions of Article 370 that provided special status to Jammu and Kashmir and the increase in ceasefire violations following the Centre's move on August 5.

"The situation along the border is fine and the ceasefire violations by Pakistan have no connection with the abrogation. This has been going on for many years now," he said. Singh said infiltration had reduced by a large extent but the launch pads across the Line of Control were active as militants were waiting to sneak in.

"We do not have the exact figures of how many militants are there at the launching pads (on other side of Line of Control) but militants are there at these launching pads. They keep on making attempts to sneak in," he added.

On the troops' movement in Jammu and Kashmir, Singh said "induction and de-induction of forces is a normal process, this has been happening at the time of elections etc".

"The situation (in Kashmir) is normal, there is peace. There is no encounter or bloodshed, this is evident to all," he added. Asked about militants reverting to use of satellite phones for communicating with their handlers in recent months to avoid interception, Singh said it did not matter as the forces are capable of dealing with them and ready to do it.

"Use of satellite phones by militants is nothing new. We also have satellite phones and we also use them. We have the systems to intercept whichever system (of communication) they might use. India has more technology than Pakistan," he said.