Tags:
Journalism of Courage
In a turnaround on the intriguing incident of June 19 on the Line of Control in which four Pakistani soldiers were killed in a crossfire with militants, the Pakistan government has lodged an official protest with India alleging that its soldiers were actually killed by Indian troops.
In fact, Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi raised this issue with the Indian side during his curtailed visit to India on June 27. It’s learnt that he termed the incident as “cross-border firing” and asked a perplexed Indian government to take adequate measures to prevent such incidents in the future.
Further, the Pakistan Director General of Military Operations in his regular telephone conversation with his Indian counterpart also raised this issue. The Pakistan military is even alleging that the bodies of its soldiers were not in proper condition when they were retrieved.
While the Indian side looks into the matter, South Block is quite stunned by this turnaround as Pakistan Military Spokesperson Maj Gen Athar Abbas had attributed the incident to “unknown miscreants”, a term Pakistan usually uses for militants, on the day of the incident.
The version that has by and large been accepted until now in India is that militants were trying to cross the LoC in the Krishna Ghati sector of Poonch area on June 19. They came under heavy fire from the Indian side and began to push back. It is believed that in the process they ran into a Pakistani patrol leading to a crossfire which resulted in killing of four Pakistani soldiers.
Since it was quite dark, there was considerable confusion on the Pakistani side but its military spokesperson made it clear, almost immediately, that there was exchange of fire with “miscreants” in the Hajra sector of Rawalkot opposite Poonch on the Pakistan side.
This position was a shift from the general tendency to blame Indian troops for any such incident. In fact, Indian officials felt that Pakistan would use this as a good example to show their commitment to preventing infiltration into India.
However, the new posture does not seem to have lasted long enough with Islamabad now registering a formal protest.
The narrative around this incident has taken bizarre twists and turns. At first, a Defence Ministry Spokesperson in Jammu claimed that the entire action was actually a first-of- its- kind “joint operation” with Pakistan forces on the LoC. The story only got better after the Pakistan Military Spokesperson spoke about miscreants without blaming Indian troops.
However, within a couple of hours, the military authorities here denied the earlier statement of its local spokesperson and said there was no such joint operation. In fact, the spokesperson concerned was asked for a detailed explanation the next day and Army Chief Gen Deepak Kapoor asked the Defence Ministry to inquire into how local authorities issued such an “inaccurate statement”.
Subsequently, the Army gave out a version that became the general narrative until now. With Pakistan back to blaming India, officials here feel there was a rethink in Islamabad prompted, perhaps, by a section of the government or the Pakistan Army.
