Btw, here's some information that has now come out on the trigger.
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Like so many of the little wars that have erupted on the India-Pakistan frontier in Kashmir, military sources told The Indian Express, the spark that lit the fire was small: a pile of burning bushes outside the BSF’s Pital Post — so named, local accounts have it, because brass artillery casing was piled up here after the 1971 war, to be auctioned to scrap-dealers. The BSF had begun clearing the undergrowth along the border late in the summer, and the Pakistan Rangers had protested, saying the fires threatened their positions.
Then, at 11:15 am on July 17, a day after a flag meeting held by local commanders to sort out the problem, constable Sanjay Dhar of the 192 Battalion was shot dead outside Pital Post, killed in a burst that left three of his colleagues, and three more labourers, injured.
“We’d had some firing in the sector because of the undergrowth dispute,” an officer familiar with the area told The Indian Express, “but they were in the nature of warning shots. No one was expecting someone to be shot.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, military sources said, then issued orders for ceasefire violations to be responded to in strength. And that’s just what the BSF did, firing for days at several Pakistan Ranger positions facing Pital Post, killing at least four soldiers, according to sources in the force’s intelligence wing, the G-Branch. The unusually hard response drew retaliation, with every cycle turning the heat a notch upwards. Each week after, both sides fired thousands of rounds at each other, and clashes reached levels of magnitude higher than anything seen since India and Pakistan almost went to war in 2001-02.
Indian intelligence officials say the Pakistan Rangers got the worse of it, and responded by stepping up the fire from their side. In an August 18 battle, for example, the Rangers shelled the villages of Treva, Suhagpur and Pindi, around Arnia, with 82 mm mortar, after two of their soldiers were injured in small-arms firing. In Suhagpur, Des Raj Saini’s home was blown apart by a direct hit.
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Early on Eid morning, Indian border guards at Pital Post, not far from the small market town of Arnia in Jammu, began their routine march along the giant, barbed-wire border fence that runs from the Rann of Kutch to Kashmir. Like any other day, they wore body armour and carried guns — but this time, they had an unusual message to pass on. “Let’s stop firing”, they had been ordered to shout out to every Pakistani patrol passing by, “it isn’t good for your people or for ours.”
For a while, it looked like the tactic had worked: no shots were fired across the India-Pakistan border in Jammu that day, or the next.
Then, before dawn on Monday, mortar shells arched over the border, landing in middle of Arnia and the adjoining hamlet of Mashan-De-Kothe. Lined up at Arnia’s cremation ground that evening were the bodies of Parshottam Lal and his 13-year-old daughter Kajal; Satya Devi, wife of Chajju Ram; Rajesh Kumar, son of Makka Ram; and Ram Lal, an ageing shopkeeper. The ground had space for just four bodies, and space had to be made for the fifth
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But now, following the shelling of Arnia, the rules have changed and civilians on both sides have begun to pay the price. The village of Dhamala, perched near the border east of Sialkot, took the brunt of the BSF’s first display of rage, hours after Arnia was shelled. Salima Bibi, an ageing resident of the village, was shot dead along with 10-year-old Adeel Ahmad and his four-year-old brother, Hamad Ahmad. In nearby Tulsipur, another senior citizen, Mohammad Ishaq, lost his life.
”They killed our people,” one mid-level BSF official told The Indian Express. “We’re not going to shower their villages with rose-petals for doing that”.
In New Delhi, a BSF spokesperson said its troops had strict instructions to avoid targeting civilians. Local commanders, however, admitted villagers across the border were targeted in an effort to mount pressure on the Rangers.
Fighting now rages on a giant arc running from Jammu to Poonch — where shelling of civilian settlements has also broken out. In statements issued on on Wednesday, Pakistan said three of its nationals had been killed in the Sialkot sector, while Indian authorities reported one fatality.
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“The border tension suits Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the Pakistan army just fine,” a senior Indian intelligence official said. “Both are facing crises of legitimacy, and this will rally people behind them.”
Prime Minister Modi, who promised an aggressive response against ceasefire violations during his election campaign, cannot, however be seen as backing down either. India has rejected calls for a flag meeting until the firing ends.