Authorities in Pakistan-administered Kashmir closed over 1,000 non secular faculties Thursday amid fears that India may launch navy strikes in response to final week’s lethal assault.
India blames Pakistan for the gun assault that killed 26 folks on April 22 in Indian-administered Kashmir, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi giving his navy “complete operational freedom.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio late Wednesday individually referred to as India’s prime diplomat Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to “de-escalate tensions and maintain peace and security in South Asia,” the State Department stated.
Denying involvement within the assault, Islamabad says it has “credible evidence” that India is now planning an imminent navy strike, vowing that “any act of aggression will be met with a decisive response.”
Rubio “urged Pakistani officials’ cooperation in investigating this unconscionable attack,” stated spokeswoman Tammy Bruce.
India’s overseas minister stated after the decision that the assault’s “perpetrators, backers and planners must be brought to justice.”
Fearing a navy escalation, Pakistani authorities shut greater than 1,000 non secular faculties in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
“We have announced a 10-day break for all madrassas in Kashmir,” stated Hafiz Nazeer Ahmed, head of the native non secular affairs division.
A division supply stated it was “due to tensions at the border and the potential for conflict.”
On Thursday, New Delhi reported the seventh straight night time of small arms gunfire between the 2 sides on the closely militarized Line of Control, the de facto border.
‘Constant concern’
Muslim-majority Kashmir, a area of round 15 million folks, is split between nuclear-armed Pakistan and India which have fought a number of wars over the disputed territory.
About 1.5 million folks stay close to the cease-fire line on the Pakistani facet, the place residents are readying easy, mud-walled underground bunkers – bolstered with concrete if they may afford it.
“For one week we have been living in constant fear, particularly concerning the safety of our children,” Iftikhar Ahmad Mir, a 44-year-old shopkeeper in Chakothi on the Line of Control (LoC), informed AFP.
“We make sure they don’t roam around after finishing their school and come straight home.”
Emergency providers staff in Muzaffarabad, the primary metropolis in Pakistan-ruled Kashmir, have additionally begun coaching schoolchildren on what to do if India assaults.
“We have learned how to dress a wounded person, how to carry someone on a stretcher and how to put out a fire,” stated 11-year-old Ali Raza.
Tit for tat aggression
Since the assault – the deadliest in Kashmir on civilians in years – India and Pakistan have exchanged tit-for-tat diplomatic barbs and expulsions and shut border crossings.
Indian police have issued wished posters for 3 males suspected of involvement – two Pakistanis and an Indian – who they are saying belong to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, a U.N.-designated terrorist group.
They have introduced a 2-million-rupee ($23,500) bounty for data main to every man’s arrest and carried out sweeping detentions looking for anybody suspected of hyperlinks to the attackers.
New Delhi on Wednesday closed its airspace to Pakistani planes, after Islamabad banned Indian planes from overflying.
India and Pakistan have fought over the Himalayan territory because the violent finish of British rule in 1947.
Rebels within the Indian-run space of Kashmir have waged an insurgency since 1989, looking for independence or a merger with Pakistan.
The worst assault lately in Indian-run Kashmir was at Pulwama in 2019, when a suicide bomber rammed a automotive full of explosives right into a safety forces convoy, killing 40 and wounding 35.
Indian fighter jets carried out airstrikes on Pakistani territory 12 days later.
Source: www.dailysabah.com