India-Pakistan border quiet but Kashmir tense amid militancy crackdown

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As India and Pakistan seem to dial down hostilities that brought the two to the brink of another war, a massive crackdown on militancy in the Indian-controlled Kashmir region is killing both militants and security personnel in big numbers.

At the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border between the neighbors, there was relative calm in the previous 24 hours, their armies said on Sunday.

In the past few days, the exchange of fire has killed seven people on the Pakistani side and four on the Indian side, though the release of a downed Indian fighter pilot by Pakistan on Friday night has helped de-escalate tensions.

"By and large the LoC was calm last night but you never know when it will become active again," said Chaudhry Tariq Farooq, a minister in Pakistani Kashmir. "Tension still prevails."

Indian warplanes carried out air strikes on Tuesday inside northeast Pakistan's Balakot on what New Delhi called militant camps, whose existence Islamabad denied.

A Pakistani girl holds a light candle during a vigil for peace in Lahore on March 3, 2019. /VCG Photo

Nevertheless, Pakistan retaliated on Wednesday with its own aerial mission in a show of force. The neighboring countries have fought three wars since independence from Britain in 1947.

In Indian-controlled Kashmir, troops on Sunday shot dead two militants after a three-day gun battle that also killed five security force personnel, taking the total death toll to 25 in the past two weeks.

The fresh anti-militancy drive was launched after the tragedy on February 14 when 40 Indian paramilitary police died.

The Indian government has also come down hard on separatist groups operating in Kashmir, including by banning the Jamaat-e-Islami party, two of whose clerics were detained in raids on Saturday night.

A supporter of the pro-Indian political party People's Democratic Party holds placards during a protest against the Jamaat-e-Islami ban in Srinagar, March 2, 2019. /VCG Photo

It's reported that 300 Jamaat leaders and activists in the past two weeks have been arrested because the group was thought to destabilize the government and carve out an ISIL in the south Asian country.

Amit Shah, the president of India's ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party that faces a general election by May, said that the government has made it clear to the separatists that "if they want to live in India, they will have to speak the language of India, not Pakistan's."

The government, however, has come under pressure from the opposition to share proof that "a very large number" of militants were killed in air strikes inside Pakistan this week, after doubts were raised that there were any casualties in the attack.

Source(s): Reuters