India lashes Islamabad over deadly encounter

JAMMU, India: India denounced Pakistan yesterday over a firefight in the disputed territory of Kashmir in which two Indian soldiers were killed, but the nuclear-armed rivals both appeared determined to prevent the clash escalating into a full diplomatic crisis.
India summoned Pakistan’s envoy in New Delhi to lodge a “strong protest”, accusing a group of Pakistani soldiers it said had crossed the heavily militarized Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir of “barbaric and inhuman” behavior.
The body of one of the soldiers was found mutilated in a forested area on the side controlled by India, Rajesh K. Kalia, spokesman for the Indian army’s Northern Command, said. However, he denied Indian media reports that one body had been decapitated and another had its throat slit.
“Regular Pakistan troops crossed the Line of Control ... and engaged the Indian troops who were patrolling the sector,” India’s Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement after Pakistan’s high commissioner to India had been called in.
“Two Indian soldiers were killed in the attack and their bodies subjected to barbaric and inhuman mutilation.”
India’s foreign minister sought to cool tensions, however, saying that exhaustive efforts to improve relations could be squandered if the situation was not contained.
“I think it is important in the long term that what has happened should not be escalated,” Salman Khurshid told a news conference. “We cannot and must not allow the escalation of any unwholesome event like this.”
“We have to be careful that forces ... attempting to derail all the good work that’s been done towards normalization (of relations) should not be successful,” he added, without elaborating on who such forces might be.
India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their independence in 1947, two of them over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, and both are now nuclear-armed powers.
Firing and small skirmishes are common along the 740-km (460-mile) LoC despite a ceasefire that was agreed in 2003.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry denied India’s allegations of an incursion as “baseless and unfounded” and said in a statement that it was prepared for an investigation by a UN military observer group into recent ceasefire violations.
Like New Delhi, it stressed the need to pursue better relations, adding: “Pakistan is committed to a constructive, sustained and result-oriented process of engagement with India.”