NEW DELHI – The news that two Indian soldiers were killed by their Pakistani counterparts along a disputed border in the Himalayan region of Kashmir turned into a national media outrage this week, after un-named military sources said one of the dead men’s bodies had been beheaded, and his head carried back to Pakistan.
Over menacing music, Indian television anchors fanned the flames during news reports Tuesday. What were India’s options to punish Pakistan, they asked?. Was there any point in continuing the peace process — or even playing cricket against them?
With details of the skirmish released just in time for the evening news, the story dominated the evening talk shows here as retired Indian generals queued up to take potshots at their old foe. The government spoke of the “barbaric and inhuman mutilation” of the corpses, and denounced the “ghastly” and “dastardly” act.
But the full story of the recent violence along the disputed border in Kashmir may reveal a more complex and less one-sided picture.
For a start, both sides’ armies may have beheaded rival soldiers’ corpses in tit-for-tat exchanges last year, according to a report, sourced to highly-placed military and government officials, by respected journalist and editor Praveen Swami in The Hindu newspaper..
Tuesday’s attack by Pakistani troops also appears to have come in retaliation for a similar attack by Indian troops a few days before, in which one Pakistani soldier was killed, a senior security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.
Indeed, the tension along this particular stretch of border began in September when a Kashmiri grandmother sneaked across the border to join her sons who were already living on the Pakistani side, The Hindu story said.
Indian troops, concerned about the ease with which the woman seemed to have crossed, started building bunkers around her village to keep a closer eye on residents.
Pakistan viewed the construction of the bunkers, so close to the frontier, as a violation of a ceasefire agreement and tried to stop it from going forward by shelling and firing on the area. In October, three villagers were killed by Pakistani shelling, and on Jan. 6, an Indian brigadier struck back by raiding Pakistani positions, the report said.
In a statement issued Thursday, the Indian army said “certain aspects” of The Hindu story were incorrect, specifically denying that their troops had crossed the Line of Control on Jan. 6, but instead had carried out “controlled retaliation” to Pakistani violations of the ceasefire agreement. The army also said the grandmother crossed the frontline in September 2011, and denied that incident had any link with recent events.
Amid the outrage, some journalists on both sides of the border took to Twitter on Thursday to ask whether the Indian media had taken things too far.
India media fuels outrage over ‘beheading’ but real story may be more complex - The Washington Post
