Jammu, Feb 21: India and Pakistan are scheduled to hold a flag meeting on Friday on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch district to address the rising incidents of ceasefire violation.
The flag meeting will be attended by Brigadier-level officers of the two sides at the Chakan Da Bagh LoC crossing point in the district. Indian and Pakistan armies announced a ceasefire in 2021. Due to this ceasefire agreement, tensions on the LoC came down appreciably and a modicum of normalcy returned to hundreds of families living on the two sides of the border.
However, recent incidents of firing from across the LoC resulted in injuries to two soldiers in Poonch and Rajouri districts. On February 11, two soldiers, including a captain, were killed in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast in the Akhnoor sector of the LoC in Jammu district.
The officials said the IED had been planted by the terrorists. The Indian Army had retaliated to cross-LoC firing in Poonch district. Reports said the Indian retaliation caused casualties on the Pakistan side of the LoC. Intelligence reports said that due to scant snowfall this winter, the traditional infiltration routes in J&K are still open and the terrorists have been trying to sneak into the Indian side of the LoC.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah chaired two security review meetings on J&K. During those meetings, he gave orders to the security forces to ensure zero infiltration and zero tolerance for terrorists. J&K Lt Governor Manoj Sinha also chaired two security meetings recently, one in Srinagar and the other in Jammu.
The Lt Governor gave orders to police and the security forces to dismantle the terror ecosystem by targeting terrorists, their over-ground workers (OGWs) and sympathisers. The terrorists have been trying to increase their activities after the peaceful and people-participative Lok Sabha and Legislative Assembly elections in the union territory last year. After the spurt in terrorist activities, the security forces launched aggressive operations against the terrorists.
-IANS